Corruption is a scourge the societies dragged during almost every moment of their history. Nowadays this type of crimes whose protagonists are authorities or public servants persist. These are some of the most important ones.
7 july 2016
The media agenda of the last years is full of events related to corruption. Each year appear news about dozens of new cases joining those open cases. Their long duration and public character facilitate that they remain in the covers of media.
Political corruption is not typified and there is a lack of a particular section in the Spanish legislation
The word corruption englobes a very general sense in the field of Law. Despite the general sense of this term is attributed to public and politic crimes, corruption can also refer to crimes of child abuse, corruption in the field of business or the area of commercial transactions.
Political corruption is not typified in the legal area and there is a lack of a particular section in the current legal framework. This fact can difficult the identification of these crimes, as well as the resolution of judicial procedures, having to resort to different and more dispersed articles of the Criminal Code.
The legal bases on the crimes against public administration are the the Title XIX of the Organic Law 10/1995, 23 November, of the Criminal Code. Despite these breaches of the law are generalised under the word corruption, each crime is different and independent. These are some of the crimes of the Spanish courts:
- Perversion of justice. Authorities or public servants taking arbitrary decisions, aware of its injustice and illegality will be punished with a sentence of disqualification from public employment for a period of nine to fifteen years. Likewise, the crime of perversion of justice, naming of giving possession for the exercise of a public charge to a person in an irregular way and not complying the stablished legal requirements.
- Bribery. This crime is produced when the authorities or public servants receive or ask for favours or retributions, as well as when they promise to do some actions using their position, contraries to their duties and responsibilities for their own benefit. In general, the prison sentence will be of three to six years plus a fine of twelve to twenty-four months of special disqualification from public employment and for the exercise of the right to stand as a candidate between nine and twelve years. These orders are in the article 419 followed by other eight articles where is specified the treatment of the crime.
- Influence peddling. When public servants or public authorities use their position to have influence on a resolution that can generate benefits to theirselves or to a third party, they are committing a crime of influence peddling that are punished with six months to two years of prison.
- Embezzlement. The article 432 reflects that the authority or public servant committing a crime of the article 252 or 253 of the Law 10/1995 of the Criminal Code about the public heritage, will be sentenced to prison from two to six years and disqualification from public employment from six to ten years. Sentences will be more severe if some of the sections of the point three of this article occur. Likewise, if the value of goods or appropriate values is less than 4.000 €, the sentence will be from one to two years of prison plus a fine and disqualification.
