JOHN CARLOS I,

KING OF SPAIN

To all who present it and understand,

Sabed: That the General Courts have approved and I come to sanction the following Organic Law:

EXPLANATORY STATEMENT

The draft Organic Law that the Government raises to the General Cortes to amend the wording of Articles 503, 504 and 529 of the Criminal Procedure Law is inspired by the same principles that inform them. precepts since the promulgation of the recent Organic Law 7/1983 of 23 April. By obeying such principles, present in the Constitution and explicitly formulated by the Constitutional Court, this draft Law has two objectives.

First, to give a new formulation to the assumptions in which the provisional prison can be decreed, in accordance with the Constitutional Court's doctrine that the measure should not be applied with automatism, but rather that the judicial authority will take its decision "taking into account the circumstances of the case". The project therefore ratifies the abandonment of the system established in the Law of 22 April 1980 to enable the court to assess, in the dialectical tension between the principles of personal freedom and the presumption of innocence and (a) the security of the proceedings, where the preventive detention is to be imposed and where the provisional release of the accused, with or without bail. The differing interpretations which have been produced in practice on the scope of the last indent of Article 503 (2), which have been echoed by the doctrine, require the legislator to decide to avoid differences of opinion. On the other hand, the Organic Law 1/1983, of 25 June, of Urgent and Partial Reform of the Penal Code, in which the penological system is extensively modified, seems to include the lesser prison sentences and under the second circumstance of Article 503, with the corresponding adjustment of the Article 529 to the modified modification.

The second objective of this project is to solve certain problems that the practice has revealed around the maximum duration of the preventive prison situation. Our constitutional system imposes, as we know, two temporary limits on this situation. One, derived from the principle of presumption of innocence, is present in Article 528 of the Criminal Procedure Law ("the provisional prison will only last for the reasons that have caused it"); it seems appropriate to complete the Article 4 (1) of the Law of the Court of Justice of the Court of Justice of the European Union of the European Union of the European Union of the European Union of the European Union At the same time, the project, which makes the old statement of the explanatory statement of the Royal Decree approving the Law of Criminal Procedure (" the citizen of a free people must not expiate faults that are not his own, nor be a victim of the (b) the fact that the time of the provisional imprisonment is not to be added to the periods in which the cause suffers from delays which are not attributable to the same bodies to which the person concerned has been required to do so before, that is, to the courts. Although an application of the doctrine of the fraud to the Law could have been sufficient to reach the same results that are now explicitly formulated, in matter like this, in which the interpretative channels are certainly logical, it turns out It should be clear that it would favour results contrary to those pursued by the system. It does not do the project, for the rest, but to welcome the arguments of the European Court of Human Rights and the Constitutional Court itself.

The other limit, linked to the right to personal freedom more directly, is covered by Article 504. The experience gained in the application of the latter provision, while imposing the maximum temporary limits on the situation of preventive imprisonment, expresses the need to provide for a system of carryovers linked to objective situations. to combine the principle of personal freedom with the insurance of criminal proceedings without, in any case, the preventive prison as a penalty or, in general, as a criminological measure, as the Court has stated. Constitutional. It is therefore envisaged that the extension measure will be adopted in a reasoned resolution against which the remedies for reform and appeal may be used, which will provide a guarantee that the precautionary measure will not lead to any other purpose than the Constitutionally intended.

Single item.

Articles 503, 504 and 529 of the Criminal Procedure Act will have the following wording:

" Article 503

The following circumstances will be necessary to decree the provisional prison;

1. The existence of a fact that presents the character of a crime is caused by the case.

2. That the latter has a higher penalty than that of a lesser prison, or that, even if he has a lower or lower sentence of imprisonment, consider the necessary Judge the provisional prison, taken care of the antecedents of the accused, the circumstances of the event, the social alarm which the commission has raised or the frequency with which similar events are committed. Where the Judge has ordered the provisional imprisonment in the event of a crime which is less than that of the major prison, he may, according to his judgment, leave it without effect, if the circumstances taken into account have changed, of the defendant with or without bail.

3. Let there be a lot of reasons to believe that the person against whom the prison order is to be sentenced is criminally responsible for the crime.

Article 504.

The provisional prison will also proceed when the first and third circumstances of the previous article are present and the defendant would not have appeared, without legitimate reason, to the first appeal of the Judge or Tribunal or whenever This is considered necessary.

Notwithstanding the provisions of the previous article, even if the crime has a higher penalty than the lesser prison sentence, when the defendant lacks a criminal record or must be deemed to be cancelled and may be believed to be The Court of Justice of the European Court of Justice of the European Court of Justice of the European Union, of the Court of Justice of the European Court of Justice of the European Union, of the Court of Justice of the European Union, of the Court of Justice of the European Union, they may agree, by bail, on the freedom of the defendant.

The defendant held in temporary detention has the right to be treated as a matter of priority and with special care. The Judge or Court that knows the cause and the Prosecutor's Office, each within their duties, shall take care of their responsibility that the provisional prison does not extend beyond what is necessary.

The provisional prison situation will not last for more than three months in the case of a crime for which the maximum arrest penalty is due, or more than one year when the sentence is less than two years in prison when the sentence is above. In the latter two cases, circumstances which make it possible that the cause may not be judged within these periods and that the defendant may be brought to justice, the prison may be extended for up to two and four years, respectively. The prolongation of the provisional prison will be sealed by car, with an audience of the defendant and the Prosecutor's Office.

Once the defendant has been convicted, the provisional prison may be extended to the limit of half the sentence imposed in the sentence when it has been appealed.

It will not be taken into account, for the computation of the deadlines set out in this article, the time in which the cause, will suffer dilations not imputable to the Administration of Justice.

Against cars that have been granted temporary imprisonment or those who have their extension or provisional freedom, the resources for reform and appeal may be exercised.

Granted the freedom in the course of the maximum periods foreseen for the provisional prison will also apply the provisions of the first paragraph of this article.

Article 529 (first paragraph).

When the person is prosecuted for a crime to which he or she has been sentenced to a lesser or lesser prison term, and is not, moreover, within the meaning of Article 492 (3), nor has his or her provisional prison been decreed by application of the provisions of Articles 503 or 504 of this Law, the Judge or Tribunal which knew of the case shall decree if the defendant is to be granted bail to continue on a provisional release,

(The second and third paragraphs of this article remain the same). "

FINAL DISPOSITION

This Organic Law shall enter into force on the day following its publication in the Official Gazette of the State. "

Therefore,

I command all Spaniards, individuals and authorities, to keep and keep this Organic Law.

Palacio de la Zarzuela, Madrid, 26 December 1984

JOHN CARLOS R.

The President of the Government,

FELIPE GONZÁLEZ MARQUEZ