A Slight Hitch

It would appear that there is no Spanish equivalent of the Probation Service. Consequently, when an offender is sentenced to community work, it falls to his/her local town hall to organise and supervise it. They must do so within twelve months of sentence being passed or it expires. The judges have just pointed out that the local town halls come up with very few jobs, so the majority of unlicenced drivers (and others) will probably never have to worry about that part of their sentence.

Unlicensed drivers

As from May 1st, the offence of driving without an appropriate licence has become imprisonable here in Spain. In the context that the average weekend sees around 20 deaths on Spain´s roads, half of them motorcyclists, something clearly needed to be done. The Traffic Division of the Guardia Civil set to with a will and so in the first few days of May a steady stream of (mainly young, male) offenders appeared before the court. So far I don´t believe a custodial sentence has been imposed, but hefty fines, coupled with community service are the order of the day. Thus an 18 year old was fined €2,000 and sentenced to 27 days of community working (about 160 hours by my reckoning). There was no pressure on the courts to constrain the fine within the offenders´ "ability to pay within a reasonable period".

And where did you find your bail money, señor?

A member of the now notorious Marbella city council was recently released from prison after spending two years banged up awaiting trial on corruption charges. All his assets had been frozen by the court, so the police were more than a little surprised when it took his family only 17 days to raise the €1million needed for his surety. They are investigating.
In the meantime, eight days later a judge in Madrid put him back inside on another set of charges alleging he took part in the embezzlement of €27 million from the Marbella coffers. The judge said the trial was likely to take place shortly, with a minimum 10 year jail sentence if convicted, so it was highly likely that he would fail to surrender if bailed. However, if he can come up with another surety of €3 million.............
It makes me wonder why we never seemed to think of a surety where the main concern was "fail bail".

PS If anyone´s wondering, I kept hamkering after the blog!