La Manada Sentence: From "sexual merriment" to "humiliation and contempt" | Society
Last April 27, the Provincial Court of Navarre issued a ruling for the case of La Manada -Nine years in jail for sexual abuse with the prevalence of five men to an 18-year-old girl during the first night of San Fermin in 2016- and, in her, a particular vote that produced strong social outrage and it was one of the reasons for the multitudinous demonstrations of those days. It was signed by magistrate Ricardo González, who saw in the events a "raw and uninhibited sexual relationship." Almost eight months later, the judgment of the Superior Court of Justice of Navarre (TSJN) contains another individual vote, that of the judges Joaquín Galve and Miguel Ángel Abárzuza, who ask for a conviction for aggression and not for abuse and see in the facts "a degree of humiliation and contempt for the victim that exceeds that which occurs in any violation."
The difference between the individual votes shows how, based on the same proven facts, the legal qualification can be more favorable or less for the complainant or the accused. Or, in the words of feminists, that consideration would be the effect of a greater or lesser gender perspective. Viviana Waisman, president of Women's Link: "With the Penal Code and with the same facts it is possible to see a violation, because this particular vote makes an analysis with a gender perspective".
The private vote of Judge Ricardo Javier González González
"I can not interpret in their gestures or in their words (in what I have heard) intention of mockery, contempt, humiliation, mockery or boasting of any kind." Yes of a total disinhibition and explicit sexual acts in an environment of fun and rejoicing in all of them, and, certainly, less activity and expressiveness in the whistleblower. "
The private vote of the judges Joaquín Galve and Miguel Ángel Abárzuza
"We are in the presence of the aggravation consisting of having covered the intimidation exercised a particularly degrading or humiliating character, referred to in Article 180.1.1 of the Criminal Code, to exceed the detrimental character that is observed in all cases of sexual assault, attend a degree of humiliation, contempt and humiliation for the victim that exceeds that which occurs in any violation, appreciate the existence of behaviors that were not necessary for the execution of the target type and consider, in addition to the vexation that took place during the realization of the facts, the subsequent act of leaving "to her fate", alone and naked to the denouncer, without possibility of communication, in a city that, the aggressors knew, was unknown to her ".
The private vote of Judge Ricardo Javier González González
"His will not to maintain the sexual relations that took place in the portal was completely silenced in his heart and was not transmitted, hinted, or communicated in any way, at all, not even tacitly, because his submission, if it was such, translated into such an appearance of acceptance that does not allow to establish that it could even be perceived or intuited by the accused. "
The private vote of the judges Joaquín Galve and Miguel Ángel Abárzuza
"We must conclude that, in the end, we are faced with an assumption of absence or total absence of effective consent of the victim, annulled by the action of the accused, in view of what the latter values as something that renders useless possible opposition on his part , in view of the impossibility of obtaining help from third parties, especially when the attitude of the aggressor (in our case five aggressors), of stronger physical consistency, who manifest their determined purpose of abusing the foreign body to satisfy their own appetites, without that it is necessary to use any weapon or threatening material instrument ".
The private vote of Judge Ricardo Javier González González
"Nothing, in any of the images I have seen allows me to affirm that the actions or words that are observed or heard have the slightest imperative character, nothing, in any of the sounds that are perceived, that is strange in the context of the sexual relations that are maintained, all of them are images of explicit sex in which there is no place for affectivity, but also, without overtones of force, imposition, injunction or violence ".
The private vote of the judges Joaquín Galve and Miguel Ángel Abárzuza
"It should be noted that the intimidation was of a particularly degrading or humiliating nature, in view of the manner in which such acts were carried out, mediating sexual intercourse through the vaginal, anal and oral routes, carried out by the five defendants, as described in the facts alluded to by the contested judgment and is verified with the graphic-photographic view when it mentions the contested judgment that indicates that while "the defendants had just enjoyed a sexual binge after the trap they had tended to the complainant" the latter is observed «Crouching, cornered against the wall by two of the defendants and screaming».
The private vote of Judge Ricardo Javier González González
"I do not appreciate in the videos anything other than a crude and uninhibited sexual relationship, maintained between five men and a woman, in a sordid, seedy and inhospitable environment and in which neither of them (nor the woman) shows the slightest sign of modesty, neither before the display of his body or his genitals, nor before the movements, postures and attitudes that are adopted.I do not appreciate in any of the videos and photographs any sign of violence, force, or abruptness exercised by men on The woman, and I do not even guess in any of the images the delight that describes the majority sentence unless the term is describing pure and raw sexual arousal.
The private vote of the judges Joaquín Galve and Miguel Ángel Abárzuza
"In the scenario and environment reported, the victim was penetrated orally by the five defendants, in addition, at least three of them vaginally and at least two anally, several times simultaneously, and all with a" handling »Of the head and body of the victim that denote an undeniable contempt for the dignity of a person, increasing their humiliation exponentially and unnecessarily and clearly appreciable in some of the videos that, according to the impugned judgment, recorded the accused Guerrero and Cabezuelo and they are attached to the proceedings, where some of their comments and gestures are also perceptible, such as that of boasting and boasting of the accused Prenda, to which the judgment of the Provincial Court refers, or phrases as in said resolution is stated ".
