For weeks, Spain’s Unidas Podemos (UP) party has been pressuring the Socialist Party (PSOE) of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez not to succumb to the pressure exercised by the right-wing parties of El Partido Popular and Vox so as to modify the “Sólo Sí es Sí” ( “Only Yes Means Yes”) law in accordance with their right-wing agenda.
“Sólo Sí es Sí” is a law that not only brought rifts between Spain’s two ruling leftist parties PSOE and UP into the surface bult also threatens to drive the Socialists towards the radical right.
Five months ago, Spain’s Congress passed the “Only Yes Means Yes” controversial legislation on sexual consent in the wake of the 2016 La Manada gang rape case when a young woman was raped by 4 men in their mid-20s during the bull-running festival in Pamplona.
Under this new law, which came in response to the initial 9-year “sexual abuse” sentence against La Manada assailants before it was increased to a “rape” sentence of 15 years, consent can only be explicit and affirmative and cannot be implied through silence or passivity.
The initial sentence was based on video footage in the assailants’ mobile phones showing the young woman with eyes shut during the assault.
By removing the distinction between sexual abuse and sexual aggression (rape), this law, which was intended to provide better protection for victims of sex crimes, ended up creating a unified legal framework to address sexual abuse and sexual aggression while in the past there had been two, explains José Luis Díez Ripollés, professor of criminal law at the University of Malaga to Time. This situation has reduced sentences for sex criminals as soon as the law entered into force. As of February 19, 2023, 345 courts have reduced sex crimes by referring to the supposedly new Feminist legislation, El Pais reports.
Irene Montero, Podemos leader and Equality minister has been behind this legislation, and by virtue of her role, she has received most of the praise and the backlash, as well. VOX MPs were not late to question the legislation and went as far as making remarks about her private life.
Montero’s other critics include fellow Feminists, who question the law’s insistence on punishment rather than a from-below approach that prioritizes education, and judges angry with comments made by Montero and other PODEMOS key figures about right wing tendencies in the Spanish judicial system.
If “Sólo Sí es Sí” puts consent at the heart of the scale used to determine the seriousness of sex crimes, it may find it challenging to overcome the ambiguity of consent rooted in the dilemmas between absence of consent, forced consent, and conditional consent. Another disadvantage is that it goes into details that can slide into an endless rabbit hole.
The controversy over this law pushed the justice ministry to subject it to revision, which collided with promises made by the Equality Ministry to maintain itintact, thus creating a crisis between the 2 ministries.
Anti-Feminist Youtuber, Roma Gallardo, explained in a video posted to Youtube that this law opens the door for made-up accusations against innocent men. This risks favouring the rights of certain social groups at the expense of those of others, he explains. A similar argument has recently been advanced by the justice minister.
Before the clash with the Justice ministry, Montero told Time she would hold tight to the law. As she lived up to this promise with the outbreak of the crisis, she is seen by her supporters as a hero.
It is in this heroism that the controversy lies. Seen from a Feminist perspective, Montero is a hero. She has advocated legislation for reproductive health and menstrual leave. She has been blunt-spoken on gender issues and domestic violence. But when it comes to “Only Yes Means Yes,” reality is the enemy of ideology.
The repeated call on PSOE to renegotiate the law, reiterated recently by Pablo Echenique, the spokesman of Unidas Podems, lays bare a feeling within Podemos that something needs to change.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had to interfere to appease the tension between the Justice Ministry, led by Pilar Llop, from his Socialist Party, and the Equality Ministry, led by Podemos’s Irene Montero, affirming that all the ministers have his trust.
Javier Lambán, President of the government of Aragon, hailed the opposition of Pedro Sanchez to “Sólo Sí es Sí” and called on him not to give up before the “cynicism and extravagance” incarnated by the Feminism that Podemos promotes.
But in order for Sanchez’s government to revise the law, his Socialist Party may count on the support of the right-wing opposition.
