The PP and the PSOE are advancing in negotiations to carry out the reform of the ‘only yes is yes’ law, which this week faces the final stretch of its processing in Congress. The socialist initiative has already passed the first of the votes it is facing this week with the support of the popular, Ciudadanos and the PNV against Podemos, ERC and EH-Bildu and Vox, after the two majority parties reached an several agreements to partially modify its content, and everything indicates that it will do so again this Tuesday, when the Justice Commission votes on the opinion that will be raised to the plenary session on Thursday for final approval before the text is sent to the Senate.
The Socialists, who once again had to deal this Monday with sharp criticism from their coalition partners for wanting to carry out the initiative even against their criteria and with the support of their main adversary on the right, try to minimize the scope of his collaboration with the party of Alberto Núñez Feijóo and insist that it did not imply any “substantial” change with respect to his initial text. The spokesperson for the socialist executive, Pilar Alegría, went so far as to say that it is “solely and exclusively” amendments of a “semantic nature.” The popular, however, have seen satisfied some of the issues on which they had been placing more emphasis.
The general secretary of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, warned last week that she would not participate in “patches” that would leave “gaps” in a rule that has already generated enormous social alarm and, among other things, put on the table issues such as the criminalization of the “distribution or public dissemination” through the Internet, the telephone or any other technology of content specifically intended to promote, encourage or incite the commission of crimes of sexual assault when it comes to minors under 16 years of age. The PSOE accepts its inclusion. Party sources allege that, in reality, the change is minimal, because it is limited to the elimination of a »misprint« (a reference was made to chapter II bis of title VIII and the ‘bis’ was superfluous). But the truth is that this “minimum error” had serious consequences: that a crime against children could not be prosecuted.
The majority partner of the Government stresses, in the face of criticism from Podemos, that the admitted changes are “solely and exclusively semantic”, they do not “substantially” modify its proposal and do not affect consent
The Socialists have also given their approval to an amendment with which the popular sought to correct an error in the same reform in which the embezzlement was modified, which caused the legal person to be left without responsibility in cases of “degrading treatment, workplace or real estate harassment. In this case, the “semantic” slip derived from the fact that the articles referred to “three previous paragraphs” and the rule where it should have said four. Despite the fact that the matter was not strictly related to the Law for the Comprehensive Guarantee of Sexual Freedom, the Ministry of Justice also deemed it appropriate to address this change.
To these modifications it would be necessary to add two compromise amendments that also change some words and some tweaks in the explanatory memorandum. The Socialist Equality Secretary, Andrea Fernández, defended that her “priority” is that the text “be the best possible.” But in the face of criticism from her partners, she reiterated: “In any case, the amendments are of a technical nature. The consent – the nuclear issue of the law of ‘only yes is yes’ for both partners in the Government – is not even touched in a comma; there is no substantial change with respect to the PSOE proposal.
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Among the proposals that the main opposition party considered most relevant and has not been able to move forward for now is the reinforcement of the “sexual indemnity of minors”, which would imply that the consent of children and adolescents to have sexual relations cannot considered valid. The main opposition party wanted to reintroduce sexual assault by deceit or abuse of trust or authority for children under 18 and over 16. The PSOE replies that it is obvious that if there is deception there is no consent and that, therefore, it is unnecessary.
The negotiations, in any case, are open and will continue throughout the day, before tomorrow the Justice Commission issues the opinion that will be put to a vote in plenary session of Congress. Then there will be an express procedure in the Senate, where the text is expected to be approved on the 26th. But the popular ones have already hung a medal. “They said they did not want our votes – recalled the deputy secretary general and campaign spokesman for the PP, Borja Sémper – and they have rectified. But not having paid attention to us seven months ago has served for a hundred sexual offenders to have been released and for a thousand to have seen their sentences reduced.
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