In the years of unpaved transition, progressive jurists, always in the minority, have slapped us with two magical notions, the jury and the resettlement of prisoners, that would turn Spain into a paradise under the rule of justice. They were willing to err on the annoying side to preach the balsamic effect. Given his persistence, we should be surprised that the left is leading the way in the general toughening of punishments today. It is clear that the weekly murder of a woman by her partner presupposes unprecedented violence, which requires exceptional laws, such as laws on gender-based violence. Now, when the avant-garde came to propose the abolition of prisons, ETA killed one person every three days.
Increasing penalties is popular and populist, but it also creates the illusion that the problem is solved. Democracy in Spain began with the big amnesty of an amnesty that the guardians of the dictatorship still enjoy. The race to increase penalties indiscriminately forgets that justice is based precisely on their degree, that serving punishment, no matter how serious the crime, means entering society with a blank slate. It is almost frightening to keep the sermons alive today, which were considered the key to living together half a century ago.
The counterexample works better. Prisoners hesitate to say that the phrase “a drunk driver killed my brother-in-law” would never deserve the same criminal nature as “drunk brother-in-law killed a person”. The Mònica Oltra case perfectly demonstrates that the aggressor is also a brother/son/husband, thus triggering evidence-based measures that are considered abstractly unacceptable in her particular case. You can go on with the convicted Benzema taking the Ballon d’Or in the stench of the crowd, or the sexual abuse of children under guardianship that has led socialist rulers to say “they are in a difficult age” and “this is the time”. things that happened”. Sol thought one day he needed to stop the spiral of punishment, not anymore.