The last sentence reduction by the law of yes is yes, there is barely three months left in prison for the sexual offender of a minor, but it stands above a thousand other resolutions in the same sense, reasoned with words very similar to those used in that case by the Court of Murcia: “It being evident that the new regulation of crimes against sexual freedom introduces new sentence ranges into several of the criminal precepts and a reduction of the minimum or maximum limits of the sentences to be imposed in various of the criminalized conducts , it is mandatory to proceed to review the sentence imposed, “says the order with which the magistrates reduce the final sentence that they themselves had imposed a year earlier on the sexual offender.

The penalty range for sexual assaults on minors under 16 years of age was modified with the yes is yes law, which lowered the minimum from 12 to 10 years. The reform that is voted on tomorrow returns it to 12, which will not prevent revisions like the one in Murcia from being maintained.

The vast majority of the 978 reductions that the CGPJ reported last Friday entails a much greater reduction. A very frequent figure is two years, which is what lowered the minimum sentence for two archetypal criminal types: adult rape (from six to four) and penetrative abuse of minors (from eight to six years). .

The law entered into force on October 7.. Initially, the provincial courts were reluctant to publicize the cases and it was a month later when this newspaper reported the first review of a final sentence: two years less for a man who had abused his stepdaughter. Also from the first sentence directly applying the new law. In it, the court indicated that the maximum it could impose was four years, while under the previous law it was six.

That sentence of the Court of Barcelona expressively reflected the inevitability of the reduction of sentences: it was issued 10 days before the law of yes is yes came into force. Why would they do anything else, said the magistrates, if in a few days they were going to be forced to review their decision.

The first of the at least 104 direct releases in application of the yes is yes also came before the reform came into force. A day earlier, the Madrid Court released a teacher convicted of abusing several students over the age of 16. The court affirmed that, with the new law, the proven facts had been decriminalized.

The thousand known resolutions include very diverse cases and sometimes spectacular discounts. At least twice -Cantabria and Tarragona- the courts have lowered the sentences of men who had raped a partner by seven years. Those have been the largest sales so far.

Supreme reviews

The Supreme Court itself has reviewed 15 sentences in application of the yes is yes. It was the first of these, that of the Arandina case, which led the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, to conclude that there was no other choice but to reform the law so that light penalties would not be perpetuated.

Before Arandina, the Supreme Court had already handed down a sentence relevant to the yes is yes, but when it arrived it no longer had general effects. It was the one issued in July 2021, when it established that the actions of La Manada had been a violation and imposed 15 years in prison on the accused. Thus, the germ of the law of the only yes is yes disappeared: the ruling of the Court of Navarra that in April 2018 had argued that the Sanfermines was an abuse, not a rape.

The streets were filled with shouts or banners of sister, I do believe you, the Ministry of Justice was surrounded by protesters and the minister Rafael Catalá suffered an escrache in Córdoba. The next day, he announced a reform of the Penal Code. “It is not a problem of the Criminal Code, it is a problem of the sentence,” the experts warned him. But the reform continued.

The one that did not do so was the PP, ousted by a motion of censure. The Government assumed the idea of changing sexual crimes, which remained in the hands of Podemos and was extended to the current law of yes is yes. It went ahead despite the clashes it generated with the socialist branch of the Executive and due to the rush of Equality to announce the project on the eve of the feminist celebration of 8-M.

Justice warned that part of the law were empty words and part, dangers. The main one was to have lowered minimum and maximum sentences. That and other critical reports led to leave the maximum penalties as they were, but minimums were kept below. This is the door that Irene Montero’s law left open and through which the thousand penalty revisions have passed.

After denying that there were going to be reductions and blaming the judges when they came in waves, Podemos maintains that its law is not softer. Yesterday, while witnessing in Congress the PP and PSOE pact that will correct its law, Podemos wielded that the sentence to a contestant of Gran Hermano could have been higher if when the abuses were committed had been in force the yes is yes.