Congress votes today in an extraordinary plenary session on the reform of the Criminal Code that affects the crime of sedition and embezzlement, in addition to the changes in the organic law of the Judiciary on the renewal of the Constitutional Court. Once it passes the congressional process, tomorrow, Friday, it will enter the Senate and will be held in plenary session on December 22. If there are no modifications, the reform will be definitively approved.
In the case of the changes that affect the renewal of the Constitutional Court, with the reform proposed by the Government of Pedro Sánchez, only a simple majority of the members will be needed to elect the court magistrates. In addition, the president will have five days from its entry into force to convene the plenary session. If the law is broken, it can lead to criminal responsibilities. The law of the Constitutional Court is also modified and the requirement of the placet of the plenary session of its magistrates is suppressed to prevent appointments from being blocked from within.
In the case of embezzlement, the legal modification that has been the most controversial, two new types are introduced: a distinction is made between cases in which there is a profit motive, with the use of public resources for their own benefit or that of third parties (new article 432), and those in which there is none but there is an incorrect administration of the goods (new article 433).
Each of these two crimes carries different penalties: in the first case (when there is a profit motive), the sentence set in 2015 in the Penal Code is maintained, which is two to six years in prison, which, in aggravated cases can reach a maximum of eight years; in the second (irregular non-profit administration), the penalty proposed in the agreement is one to four years in prison and two to six years of disqualification.
