The two immediate minor crimes courts in Barcelona that are in charge of prosecuting pickpockets for the thefts they commit are at maximum capacity and the risk of overflow is increasing. The situation is so worrying that, if it is not remedied, crimes may expire before being tried. This is stated by the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) in a document to which La Vanguardia has had access and which has been sent to the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ). In the letter, signed by the government secretary of the TSJC, it is requested that the second court on duty be consolidated in the face of the increase in petty crime and warns of the risk that crimes expire before they are tried.
“With the current pace of appointments (of trials) it is expected that the agenda of the second court on duty will be full at the end of this year with the risk that the agenda of the first court will not only begin to be delayed considerably, but that it could reach prescribe the crimes pending to be pointed out,” he maintains.
The Mossos d’Esquadra and the Urban Police, every time they arrest a pickpocket, if the amount stolen does not exceed 400 euros, they summon him directly to a trial of immediate minor crimes – previously known as misdemeanor trials – so that appear before the judge in a matter of a few days, at most a week. The objective is for the trial to be held quickly, a sentence to be handed down on the same day – usually a fine – and the accused to be able to pay it almost at the same time.
However, what the law provides is far from reality. The backlog of cases is so large that the two courts in charge of it are at their limit to absorb such a demand for cases. According to police sources, the Mossos summon the pickpockets eight months ahead, for August of this year, although since it is a non-working month the trial would be held in September, so in reality there are nine months of delay. Minor crimes expire in one year, so there is a risk that if the period for judging them is extended even longer, they could expire before reaching trial, which would generate a situation of impunity.
Currently, the data indicates that thefts have been increasing without reaching the figures of 2019, the year before the pandemic. In Barcelona, ??from January to September 2023, 64,831 thefts were committed, which is equivalent to 258 thefts each day, according to the data collected in the crime balance of the Ministry of the Interior. This represents an increase of 10.6% compared to the previous year. In 2019, the last reference year, there were 84,258 thefts recorded in the same period, an average of 308 per day.
Trials for minor crimes are held every day in the Ciutat de la Justícia. There are two rooms dedicated to them and the judges hold 24 trials each day in each room, a total of 48 a day. Before the pandemic, judges with a larger staff of officials held 60 trials a day between the two courts. Most of these hearings occur without the defendant attending. The law allows them to do so since the crime they are accused of carries a sentence of less than two years, meaning the accused is exempt from attending.
The entire judicial machinery is prepared to carry out the trial, write the sentence and notify it. However, despite hearing 48 cases each day, the time between the pickpocket being summoned and the trial taking place is increasingly longer. Proof of this is that in October an appointment was made seven months ahead, for May. Due to the increase in crime in the city, the number of trials for minor crimes that were held almost doubled. The turning point was the second half of 2022. From then on, the trials against pickpockets did not stop growing. It goes from 600 trials per month in 2022 to 1,100 in 2023, the maximum of its capacity and almost double that of a year ago, according to the data collected in the TSJC document.
To date, in Barcelona, ??despite the large number of thefts committed daily, there is only one permanent duty court that is responsible for judging petty crimes and there is another reinforcement court that was authorized in 2022 after a break. during the pandemic. However, all legal operators demand that this court be consolidated as a permanent and definitive structure. The request is unanimous. The senior magistrate of Barcelona, ??the Provincial Coordination Secretariat, the Superior Prosecutor’s Office of Catalonia, the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia and the Il·lustre Col·legi de l’Advocacia of Barcelona have sent favorable reports to the CGPJ so that it is established ” as a permanent structure” a second guard court for minor crimes “in view of the current data on the volume of accusations that do not allow us to contemplate a reduction in accusations in the future.” Legal operators are clear that thefts, far from decreasing, will continue to be committed at least at the same rate as today and an adequate body is needed to respond. At the moment, while waiting for this claim to take effect, they have requested that it be extended for at least six more months. From June to December of this year.
