The Constitutional Court revokes an entry into prison for not paying civil liability for injuring a police officer

March 17 , 2022 // Legal Reforms and Debate

Published in El Salto Diario

The high court recalls that the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights prohibits the imposition of custodial sentences or the change in alternative measures without having heard the convicted person again.

The Second Chamber of the Constitutional Court has rejected the entry into prison of a person sentenced to six months in prison for whom the Criminal Court number 12 and the Provincial Court of Madrid had revoked the suspension of the execution of the sentence for not having paid the 2,100 euros fine and civil liability to which he had also been sentenced.

Miguel Angel D. M. He was sentenced, by conformity, in October 2018 for a crime of assault on authority to six months in prison and, for two crimes of minor injuries, to two one-month fines with a daily fee of 3 euros —180 euros in total— , in addition to the payment of 700 euros to the National Police officer whom he allegedly injured as compensation, plus interest and costs. In the same sentence, of the Criminal Court number 21 of Madrid.

According to the ruling of the Constitutional Court, to which El Salto has had access, a month and a half after this sentence, the Criminal Court number 12 of Madrid began a procedure to claim Miguel Ángel D.M. the payment of the 180 euros of fines, warning that if he did not pay them he would serve one day in prison for every two unpaid installments —a total of one month in prison—, and also the payment of compensation, which already amounted to 2,100 euros, and if he did not do so, the suspension of execution of the six-month prison sentence would be revoked. In February 2019, the same court number 12 added another 700 euros of civil liability to a second police officer to the initial sentence and ordered the convicted person a commitment to pay 70 euros per month but, one year after the initial sentence , in October 2019, the court withdrew the suspension of the execution of Miguel Ángel's sentence for not having paid, without having called him to testify again.