Thirty days less waiting time: the first effects of the reinforcement of the trial of multiple repeat offenders
The Guardia Urbana does not yet have access to the system that allows checking the background of a suspect, but has already received training.
BarcelonaAt the end of the year, a three-way agreement between the Generalitat (Catalan government), the Spanish government, and Barcelona City Council put forward a shock plan against repeated offenses that proposed various reinforcements in the courts. The first step, active since March 17, was to In Barcelona, there would have been an additional on-call court (it went from two to three) to conduct immediate trials, which are held in cases of minor offenses such as theft. After almost two months of this measure being in place, the Minister of Justice, Ramon Espadaler, explains in statements to ARA that this reinforcement has managed to shorten the waiting time for a trial of this type in the city by about four weeks: if until now it was eight months, now it's seven. However, Espadaler is aware that these times are still far from what immediate trials should, by definition.
"The initial assessments are positive, but we must stabilize the three courts, reach cruising speed. We have to balance all three and reduce the time, reduce it much more," the Minister tells this newspaper. The expectation with this extra on-call shift is to be able to conduct around 6,000 trials of this type each year, and Espadaler acknowledges that for now the department is unable to know with certainty when, with this reinforcement, it will be possible to catch up on the backlog in these types of crimes. When this happens, the expectation is that this reinforcement will be withdrawn.
However, Justice is working with "the horizon of structuring" and making definitive another reinforcement measure that is part of the same. shock plan against multiple recidivism and will begin to operate on Tuesday 14th. These are four penalty judges who will join those who are already usually active to carry out quick trials, although The dean of the courts, Cristina Ferrando, clarified that these shifts will be filled by judges already active in other positions.. Criminal courts and the fast-track trials they conduct are linked to repeated offenses because, among other things, they are used to judge thefts of more than 400 euros or smaller ones in the case of repeat offenses.
A third element that was part of this shock plan consisted of the City Police having access to the Siraj system, a computer tool that allows them to check a suspect's criminal record. The objective is for officers to be able to more quickly discern whether a detainee should be taken to one court or another depending on whether, for the crime with which they will be charged, they will have to undergo a fast-track or immediate trial. For now, Espadaler points out, city police officers have not yet been able to access it while awaiting a decree formalizing their permission, but progress has been made in technical training so that, once the regulation is published, they can begin using it.
Specify 60 more courts
With the first steps of this plan to combat multiple reoffending already underway, Espadaler's team is working to specify measures that will also affect other areas of the courts. "We always said this was a shock plan for Barcelona, to address the problem of multiple reoffending, but not all of the problem has been reduced in Barcelona or in the criminal sphere." For this reason, he recalls, his department also worked "on a legislative plan that was initially concretized in the bilateral Spanish-Generalitat agreement, and which established up to 60 new judges throughout Catalonia." This is an unusual number when it comes to new courts: "Last year, none had been created, neither here nor anywhere in Spain," Espadaler recalls. In fact, during the last decade, the year with the most new courts created was 2017 (17), and the new openings have occurred in 2019 (12) and in 2021, 2022, and 2023 (10 each).
These new positions, he explains, will be created over a three-year period, starting in 2025, and will be in different jurisdictions, such as Commercial and Civil. For now, it hasn't been specified what specific positions they will be—there will be magistrates for the courts, not just judges—nor how the creation will be distributed over the next three years. In fact, these details are part of a joint effort between the Department of Justice and the governing body of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC): "We're already going into detail; we haven't finalized everything yet, but the governing body is familiar with our proposal, which is inspired by the data they provide us. The TSJC clearly identifies the needs; courts that are overwhelmed, they know the needs."
