Madrid (EFE) PP, which has agreed with the Socialists to include several amendments in the text.
The modification of the norm has caused a new clash between the government partners due to the different way of undertaking the reform that the purples have defended, who advocate including violence and intimidation as aggravating factors, and socialists, who have opted to create a aggravated subtype within the crime of sexual assault so that the penalties are higher if these situations occur.
Government partners, against
Unidas Podemos and other investiture partners of the PSOE such as ERC and EH-Bildu defend that this option dilutes the centrality of consent in the norm, something that dozens of feminist groups and jurists who yesterday protested before the Ministry of Justice to request that the socialists reverse their pact with the PP to reform the only yes is yes.
However, the progressive bloc in Congress does not lose hope that the PSOE will abandon its pact with the popular at the last moment, as demonstrated yesterday by the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, who warned the Socialists that they are still “on time ” to sign an agreement that satisfies both parties.
“We are in time before tomorrow to send a strong message to the Spanish people that feminist rights are not negotiated with the PP,” Montero asserted during the government control session on Wednesday, where he called the reform presented by the PSOE as “recoil”.
The government delegate against gender violence, Victoria Rosell, has also been convinced that there is room for an agreement between Unidas Podemos and the PSOE, because, as she told the media at the rally before Justice, the reform “is a Step back”.
For this reason, both the purples and ERC and EH-Bildu keep their amendments alive, which will be voted on again this Thursday in plenary.
On the contrary, on the eve of the vote on the reform in Congress, the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, justified the reform of the only yes is yes law with the argument that it is “the best way to defend” this normative.
The PP amendments
To the modification presented by the PSOE, some modifications proposed by the PP of a “technical nature” have been added, according to the PSOE, which defends that the added amendments do not “substantially” modify its text or touch the definition of consent.
Both parties have agreed to a compromise amendment that modifies the preamble to the rule to correct an error that exempted legal persons from criminal liability for infringing degrading treatment and undermining moral integrity.
PP and PSOE have also approved punishing the distribution of content that incites to commit sexual assaults to minors under 16 years of age, the elimination of a connector in the second paragraph of article 178 of the law -the one that defines the crime of sexual assault- and the Change of the word “circumstances” to “modalities” to refer to the scenarios that can occur in a sexual assault.
On the other hand, the reform of the law of only yes is yes will include an amendment that corrects an error in the law for the protection of children against violence regarding the statute of limitations for crimes against the liberty of the minor.