he proposed report to the draft bill to modify the

sakib1555Mijan0

The Plenary Session of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) will debate at its meeting next Thursday the 24th the proposed report to the Preliminary Draft Organic Law to modify Organic Law 10/1995, of November 23, of the Penal Code, regarding animal abuse, of which the member Roser Bach has been a speaker . The purpose of the reform, as stated in the Regulatory Impact Analysis Report (MAIN) and in the explanatory memorandum of the Draft, is to adapt the law to social expectations and end the feeling of widespread impunity for animal abuse . To achieve this objective, the projected rule creates a new title within the Penal Code that, under the heading “Crimes against animals”, contains the crimes of animal abuse, thus separating them from the crimes against flora and fauna existing in the text. punitive. The draft includes an important change regarding the protected legal good, which now extends broadly to “all vertebrate animals,” regardless of whether or not they are under human control. This option, according to the text that the governing body of the judges will study, should be expressed in the rubric given to the new title and poses important problems to reconcile the protection of animals with the protection that must also be provided to other legal rights, such as They are public health or the environment. The proposed report warns that "on more than one occasion the defense of these legal rights will come into conflict with the protection of the physical integrity or even the life of the vertebrate animal." Therefore, it will require an immediate response that will not always be supported by laws or other provisions, issued prior to the reform, that justify the conduct in question.

Collision with other crimes Another conflict is the one that will be generated in relation to crimes related to the protection of flora and fauna , which are not affected by the future reform. It is possible that a conflict of norms may occur between the conduct that is typified in the new art. 337 bis 3, which punishes the intentional death of a vertebrate animal, and the existing crime that punishes the hunting or fishing of protected species, in danger of extinction or of non-protected species, when their hunting or fishing is expressly prohibited by law, criminal offense that punishes conduct that, in most cases, causes the death of vertebrate animals. The use of the term “intentionally” also causes confusion, according to the proposed report. Conduct that causes injuries or death to the vertebrate animal due to recklessness is not classified as a crime , so for the death of a  WhatsApp Number List vertebrate animal to be considered a crime, it must necessarily be intentional. The text that the Plenary will examine also warns of the lack of definition incurred by the draft by using the objective need for veterinary treatment as an element to grade the seriousness of the crime without specifying what should be understood by veterinary treatment or whether surveillance should be included or not. or control of injuries or the first optional appointment. This lack of definition "creates a problem whose solution is transferred to the courts and tribunals , which will be the ones that, in application of the projected norm, must give content to this new element," the presentation states. (Photo: Archive) Changes to promote animal care and well-being According to the explanatory memorandum of the draft bill sent by the Government, it aims to put an end to what it describes as “a feeling of widespread impunity for animal abuse , with ineffective penalties for such actions and lacking deterrent effects” by toughening penalties.





The pre-legislator points out, in this sense, that the sentences to be imposed currently are usually less than two years, which is why those convicted do not go to prison as they can be suspended or replaced. The proposed report warns, however, that the draft does not achieve what it announces as the first and essential justification of the reform, since although both in the case of injuries and death of the animal the penalties of prison, in both cases the fine sentence continues to be maintained as an alternative. The presentation by member Roser Bach also warns of the danger of linking the possible substitution or suspension of custodial sentences with criminal impunity , when they are mechanisms that do not act automatically and whose objective is to reconcile the ius puniendi -the power punitive action of the State - with the principles of re-education and social reintegration contemplated by the Spanish Constitution within the catalog of fundamental rights and public freedoms. Considering that, this need indicated by the pre-legislator to toughen penalties may compromise the principle of proportionality . Thus, if the crime of injuries to vertebrate animals that do not require veterinary treatment is compared with the minor crime of injuries to people that do not require medical or surgical treatment, the penalty is the same, that is, a fine of one to one. three months. But in the first of the cases, the possibility of an alternative sentence of work for the benefit of the community is foreseen, the extension of which (from 31 to 90 days) determines that the type must be classified as a less serious crime and not as a minor crime such as This is the case of injuries without medical or surgical treatment in people.