The Constitutional Court has granted protection to a university professor at the University of Seville who suffered continuous sexual abuse by the dean of her faculty, that of Educational Sciences. The case led to the criminal conviction of the accused, Santiago Romero Granados, who was a professor of Physical Education, who was denounced by three teachers. One of them is the one that took the matter to the Constitutional Court because the first sentence was seven years and nine months, later reduced by the Provincial Court of Seville to two years and eight months, considering the mitigation of undue delays in the process. This mitigating circumstance is what the guarantee body has considered improperly applied. The ruling, however, does not order the Seville Court to review the case, for reasons of legal certainty, since it has been considered that the sentence has already been served, although the professor did not go to prison, after accepting a series of conditions, including facing compensation and attending sexual education courses.
The criminal procedure against the accused meant that court number 2 of this jurisdiction in Seville condemned him for having sexually abused three professors from said department, continuously, “during the period of time between 2006 and 2010, in which Mr. Romero held the position of dean of said faculty.” After the first sentence, he filed an appeal and in 2019 the Seville Court partially revoked it “and, despite maintaining the proven facts and the conviction for three crimes of continuous sexual abuse, reduced the prison sentences” to the aforementioned two years and eight. months by applying “a very qualified mitigating circumstance of undue delays in the processing of the case.”
This extenuating circumstance is what, according to the Constitutional ruling, should never have been appreciated. The ruling – for which the vice president of the court, Inmaculada Montalbán, was the speaker – has estimated that the decision of the Provincial Court violated the right to effective judicial protection of the appellant by holding the victims responsible for the delay in the processing of the case. for having taken approximately two years to report the facts. The guarantee body maintains that this conclusion is “unreasonable and lacks legal basis.”
The Constitutional Court explains it by highlighting that the law provides that anyone who is harmed by a crime has the right to report it at any time, with the only limit of prescription, which the appeal ruling of the Court of Seville itself ruled out in this case. He adds the ruling that the undue delays that can operate as a mitigating circumstance “are those that occur during the processing of the process and that can be attributed to the activity of the judicial bodies in charge of said processing.” But they “never” can be attributed “to the particular conduct that the people harmed by the crime have developed before the criminal case has even been initiated.”
The court has taken into account that the sentence that reduced the responsibility of the convicted person did not take into consideration “the context in which the criminal activity of Mr. Romero Granados occurred.” In this regard, the sentence highlights that the sexual abuse continued for more than three years within the framework of a work relationship in which the aggressor was dean of the faculty and professor of the department to which the three victims were assigned. The Constitutional Court also highlights that “these were young women, who had just embarked on their professional careers, had non-permanent employment contracts and both their renewal and their promotion in the academic career depended on the will of the aggressor, as he pointed out to them. on repeated occasions.” The ruling estimates that “in this context, the intrinsic difficulties in reporting acts of a sexual nature increased significantly, despite which the victims repeatedly brought the facts to the attention of their superiors at the University of Seville, and, given the inactivity of these , they came to formalize a written complaint before the vice-rector's office months before the criminal complaint was formalized by the University itself, after processing confidential information.”
The guarantee body reasons that not assessing these circumstances and “holding those harmed responsible for the delay in reporting is not only unreasonable from the perspective of the right to effective judicial protection,” but also ignores the prohibition of discrimination based on sex that proclaims the Constitution. And he adds that “the sexual abuse, for which Mr. Romero Granados has been convicted, is part of the crimes related to gender violence, which constitutes the most serious form of discrimination against women.” The ruling also cites recent jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in this regard.
Judge María Luisa Balaguer has presented a concurring vote, in accordance with the ruling, but with her own arguments. Balaguer considers that in this matter there has been only a partial estimate of the appeal, when it should have been extended to other aspects. She considers, therefore, that the claims of the lawsuit should have been “estimated in their entirety,” including the recognition of the psychological damage caused by the abuse, due “to the attack on the integrity of the victims after the workplace and sexual harassment suffered.” . The concurring opinion states, in short, that “the gender perspective should have been applied in the analysis of the alleged injuries.” Judges César Tolosa and Enrique Arnaldo have in turn announced another differentiated vote, in accordance with the ruling, but with an alternative argument.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_
#Constitutional #Court #protects #professor #sexually #assaulted #dean #faculty #years