The Council of Ministers will approve the reform that gives prosecutors the reins of criminal investigations.

The Cabinet of Ministers plans to address one of the biggest reforms in recent years this Tuesday. Specifically, according to government sources confirmed to EFE, the executive branch wants to approve a bill that has been in the making for almost fifteen years: the new criminal procedure law, whose main innovation is the position of the investigating prosecutor. The Cabinet's proposal, therefore, seeks to establish that the direction of criminal investigations will be in the hands of prosecutors, rather than judges, who until now have been in charge.

The text, which once approved must pass through Congress and the Senate for processing, also includes a reform of the organic statute of the Public Prosecutor's Office. One of the most relevant points is the update of the term of office of the Attorney General, which will now be five years. This change will mean that the appointment of the highest representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office will no longer coincide with that of the governments. In fact, it will also be established that, in the event of dismissal, the new Attorney General will have a mandate that will not exceed the period remaining for his predecessor.

If the bill is ultimately approved by Les Corts, the central executive or the autonomous governments will also be prohibited from requesting the Attorney General of the State to initiate any type of action in a procedure. Similarly, it also establishes that his communications with the government must be public and in writing, and he cannot be summoned to appear before the Council of Ministers. All these new developments are in line with the demands of the Council of Europe's GRECO report. which year after year asks Spain for more tools to guarantee independence of the organ.

The new model

As defined in the bill, members of the Prosecutor's Office will be responsible for conducting investigations, and the role of judges will be limited to ensuring that the rights of all parties in the proceedings are respected: pretrial detention or house searches, for example, will continue to require their approval. Thus, the process will become autonomous and will be overseen by a judge of guarantees. Once this phase is completed, a second judge—the one presiding over the preliminary hearing—will be responsible for deciding whether to open oral proceedings. If so, a third judge will be in charge of adjudicating the events.

This reversal of roles has been a long-standing demand of many legal experts and, in fact, would align the Spanish model with other European models, such as France. It is also the same procedure used by the European Public Prosecutor's Office and the Juvenile Prosecutor's Office. This model had already appeared in the preliminary draft approved in 2011 by the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who failed to complete its processing before leaving office. In 2012, Mariano Rajoy created a commission led by Manuel Marchena that drafted a regulation that also granted this power to the Prosecutor's Office.

Parties and unions excluded from the private prosecution

Another point incorporated in the reform is that it regulates the popular accusation process and, in line with the requests the Supreme Court has included in several rulings, it limits who can exercise it. Thus, upon approval of the text, public legal entities such as political parties, unions, or associations that depend on it will not be able to exercise it. It also establishes the crimes for which it can be brought, including corruption, crimes against consumer rights, hate crimes, violence against women, and illegal party financing, among others.

Furthermore, at the request of the General Council of the Jury (CGPJ) and the Council of State, the regulation of the procedure before the jury court is included, as it is considered "nonsense" to maintain it as an autonomous law. The regulation is introduced with a single modification: violation of domicile is excluded from the list of crimes that can be tried by a jury, since, since that same year, it has been processed by fast-track trial.