Every day the post stays online without a dated screenshot and without a notarial certificate, your evidence depends on the author not deleting it, and the one-year limitation period that article 131 of the Spanish Criminal Code sets for slander and libel runs from the day of publication, not from the day you read it. The “defamation complaint” people search for does not exist as such in Spanish criminal procedure, because slander (injuria) and libel (calumnia) are private offences that can only be prosecuted through a querella filed by the offended person (article 215 of the Criminal Code), signed by a lawyer and a court agent and preceded by a conciliation hearing with the author. What you decide today, securing the evidence in a form that will stand up in court and counting the deadline correctly, determines whether in a few months there is something to file and time left to file it.
Screenshots, a notarial certificate and the reply you should not post today
Save the post with the URL visible, the date, the time and the name or handle of the profile that signed it, and do the same with the comments and the number of shares, because those figures measure the publicity element of article 211 and the harm done. A screenshot on its own is easily challenged as doctored. What a court accepts without argument is a notarial certificate, in which the notary accesses the page, describes what is displayed and records it in a document with a certified date, and it should be done before you ask the platform for anything, because removal destroys the evidence. Also note who has seen it, since a witness who testifies that they read the comment and understood it to refer to you is worth as much as the screenshot.
Do not reply in the same thread. Your reply becomes the other side’s evidence, and if it contains an insult it exposes you to a counter-complaint that turns your case into a draw. Do not delete earlier conversations with that person, because context usually decides whether the expression is considered serious. Do not offer to drop the complaint in exchange for money, because that offer can be read as coercion and changes who ends up in the dock. And if the insults come with threats, a fake profile using your photos or the sharing of intimate images, the matter is no longer merely a private offence, and the police route works for those crimes just as it does in a bank impersonation scam.
Reporting slander and libel in Spain, what the law calls a querella
Article 215.1 of the Criminal Code provides that nobody shall be punished for libel or slander except by virtue of a querella filed by the offended person or their legal representative. Neither the police nor the public prosecutor can open the proceedings for you. If you go to a police station or the Guardia Civil they will take your report, because they are obliged to, but the court will close the file or tell you to file a querella, and you will have lost weeks. Under article 277 of the Criminal Procedure Act, the querella is filed through a court agent (procurador) with sufficient power of attorney and signed by a lawyer.
There are three exceptions. Where the offence is directed at a public official, a public authority or one of its agents over matters concerning their office, article 215.1 itself allows the case to proceed ex officio, and there a police report does open the case. Where the insult is uttered in the course of court proceedings, article 215.2 requires prior leave from the court that heard them. And where the author is a partner, former partner or one of the relatives listed in article 173.2, the minor insult or humiliation under article 173.4 is prosecuted on a simple report, the same family circle that applies in gender violence cases.
The deadline is what sinks most cases. Article 131.1 sets the limitation period for slander and libel at one year, and article 132.1 counts it from the day the offence was committed, which on a social network is the day of publication. Prior conciliation is not a criminal proceeding and should not be assumed to stop that clock, so the querella has to be filed within the year even if the conciliation hearing takes place late.
Slander and libel, articles 205 to 213 of the Criminal Code
Libel (article 205) is attributing a specific crime to someone knowing it to be false or with reckless disregard for the truth. Writing in a neighbourhood Facebook group that a shop owner “steals from his customers and beats his wife” attributes two crimes, and if the author cannot prove them, it fits the offence. Slander (article 208) is any expression or action that injures another person’s dignity by damaging their reputation or their self-esteem, and it is only a crime when, by its nature, effects and circumstances, it is publicly regarded as serious. Calling someone a “fraudster” or a “paedophile” in an open thread is serious slander, and if what is attributed is a specific false fact, it may be libel. A “useless idiot” in a heated argument does not reach the threshold.
Publicity aggravates the penalty. Article 211 deems the offence committed with publicity when it is spread by print, broadcasting “or any other means of similar effectiveness”, and the courts have consistently treated an open post on a social network as such. A private two-person WhatsApp conversation has no publicity, although it may still be serious slander without it. A group with hundreds of members is a different matter.
| Conduct | Criminal Code articles | Penalty | How it is prosecuted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Libel with publicity | 205, 206 and 211 | Six months to two years’ imprisonment or a fine of twelve to twenty-four months | Querella |
| Libel without publicity | 205 and 206 | Fine of six to twelve months | Querella |
| Serious slander with publicity | 208, 209 and 211 | Fine of six to fourteen months | Querella |
| Serious slander without publicity | 208 and 209 | Fine of three to seven months | Querella |
| Minor insult or humiliation of a partner, former partner or relative under article 173.2 | 173.4 | Permanent localisation or community service of five to thirty days, or a fine of one to four months | Police report |
| Degrading treatment seriously undermining moral integrity | 173.1 | Six months to two years’ imprisonment | Ex officio |
Fines are expressed in months because Spain uses a day-fine system, and article 50.4 sets each daily unit between two and four hundred euros according to the offender’s means, so fourteen months imposed on a wealthy author can exceed what is recovered as compensation. Article 212 adds that where the slander or libel is spread through a media outlet, the natural or legal person owning it is jointly and severally liable in damages, and article 213 imposes a disqualification of six months to two years on anyone acting for payment, reward or promise, which reaches paid smear campaigns.
When an insult is not a crime
Most of what people receive on social media is unpleasant and not a crime, and it is worth knowing that before spending money. Article 208 excludes slander that is not regarded as serious, and since Organic Law 1/2015, which abolished minor offences (faltas), a minor insult between people who are not partners or family has no criminal response. Value judgements, however harsh, are protected by freedom of expression under article 20 of the Constitution as long as they do not include gratuitously abusive language, and criticism of a professional, a politician or a business falls within that. Attributions of fact are measured by their truth. Article 207 exempts from punishment a libel defendant who proves the crime attributed, and article 210 does the same for slander directed at a public official over matters of their office or administrative infringements that turn out to be true. What falls outside criminal law may still be an unlawful interference with honour through the civil route, which I come back to below.
Criminal proceedings for slander and libel, prior conciliation and what it costs
Article 804 of the Criminal Procedure Act does not admit a querella for slander or libel between private individuals unless it is accompanied by a certificate showing that a conciliation hearing with the defendant was held or attempted without success. That hearing is governed by Law 15/2015 on Voluntary Jurisdiction, and after Organic Law 1/2025, which reorganised the courts into Courts of Instance and turned the justice-of-the-peace courts into Municipal Justice Offices, the office where it is requested has changed from what most online guides still describe. If the defendant does not attend, the conciliation is deemed attempted without success and the querella can be filed anyway. If they attend and retract in writing, the matter may not need to go further, and that outcome is the one many victims actually want.
Cost is what almost nobody explains. The querella requires a lawyer and a court agent, the notarial certificate has its price, and although individuals are exempt from court fees, the proceedings are a private prosecution from beginning to end, with the investigation, the indictment and the trial handled by your lawyer, because the public prosecutor does not take part in private offences. In time, between conciliation, investigation and trial the case is measured in months and in many courts exceeds a year. The other side’s costs are only imposed on a losing complainant where the court finds recklessness or bad faith (article 240.3 of the Criminal Procedure Act). At the firm we conduct the private prosecution in these cases from conciliation through to judgment, within our criminal law practice, and we first assess whether the expression clears the article 208 threshold, because a querella that does not costs the same as one that does.
Retraction, forgiveness and publication of the judgment at the offender’s expense
Three articles that almost no guide mentions change the outcome. Article 214 provides that if the accused acknowledges before the judge that what they said was false or unverified and retracts it, the penalty is reduced by one degree, and the judge orders a certified copy of the retraction to be delivered to the victim and, at the victim’s request, published in the same medium and in an identical or similar space to the original. For someone defamed on a social network, that compulsory correction is often worth more than the fine. Article 215.3 provides that the victim’s forgiveness extinguishes the criminal action, so the victim controls the case to the end and can close it with a settlement covering removal, correction and compensation. And article 216 establishes that reparation includes publication or dissemination of the convicting judgment at the offender’s expense, at the time and in the form the court sets after hearing both sides. Whoever defames in public may end up paying to publish their own conviction in the same place.
Slander and libel at work
When the person posting is a colleague, a manager or a former employee, the analysis splits in two. A single serious comment on LinkedIn or in the company chat group is slander or libel like any other and is prosecuted by querella. Where the acts are repeated, hostile or humiliating, committed by someone abusing a position of superiority within an employment or civil-service relationship, and amount to serious harassment of the victim, the second paragraph of article 173.1 punishes them with six months to two years’ imprisonment, and that offence is public, so a police report does work. There is also a second front, because article 4.2.e of the Workers’ Statute recognises the employee’s right to respect for their dignity, an employer that fails to act against harassment answers before the Labour Court, and an employee who insults a colleague or the employer can be dismissed for serious verbal offences (article 54.2.c). Where the dispute lies on that ground, what we do in employment law is coordinated with the querella so that evidence is not duplicated or contradicted.
Removing the post, the platform, the search engine and the judge
There are three routes, and they are taken once the evidence is secured. The first is the platform itself. The EU Digital Services Regulation requires social networks to operate a mechanism for notifying illegal content and to deal with notices diligently, and article 17 of the General Data Protection Regulation, implemented for social networks by article 94 of Organic Law 3/2018, allows you to demand erasure of inaccurate or outdated personal data, including data posted by a third party when it identifies you. The second is the search engine. Article 93 of the same law sets out the right to be forgotten against search engines, so even if the post remains on a website that ignores you, it can stop appearing when your name is typed in. The third is the judge. In civil proceedings, article 9.2 of Organic Law 1/1982 allows interim measures ordering the immediate cessation of the interference, and in criminal proceedings the court can order the platform to remove the content and preserve the data that identifies the author, the only thing that works when they hide behind an anonymous profile, and that work falls within our cybercrime practice. Removal does not extinguish the offence already committed or the right to compensation, but it limits the harm, which is why the notarial certificate comes first.
The civil route under Organic Law 1/1982 or the criminal route, which suits which case
Article 18 of the Constitution guarantees the right to honour, and Organic Law 1/1982 protects it in civil law. Its article 7.7 treats as unlawful interference the attribution of facts or the expression of value judgements that injure another person’s dignity by damaging their reputation or self-esteem, wording almost identical to article 208 but without the criminal seriousness requirement. Article 9 allows you to seek cessation, correction, publication of the judgment and compensation, and its paragraph 3 presumes harm once the interference is proven. The action lapses after four years (article 9.5), against the one year for the querella, and since Organic Law 1/2025 a civil claim requires proof of a prior attempt at negotiated settlement, which takes the place of criminal conciliation.
The civil route suits cases where the expression is offensive but of doubtful seriousness, where the year has passed, where the aim is compensation and removal rather than a conviction, or where the victim is a company, because the Constitutional Court held in judgment 139/1995 that legal persons have a right to honour in civil law, while their criminal protection remains disputed. It is also the sensible route against a media outlet, which is directly liable under that law in addition to the joint civil liability of article 212 of the Criminal Code. The criminal route suits cases where the attribution is clearly false and serious, where a judge is needed to identify an anonymous author, or where the prospect of a conviction is the only thing that will move the person posting. If the author is under fourteen there is no criminal liability, and between fourteen and eighteen Organic Law 5/2000 applies with the parents jointly liable in damages, which usually tilts the matter towards the civil courts. Choosing the wrong route costs you the deadline, and it is the first decision we take with the client.
If you lose, costs and false accusation under article 456
Losing a slander querella has two possible consequences. The first is costs, which only fall on the complainant where they acted recklessly or in bad faith. The second is more serious. Article 456 of the Criminal Code punishes anyone who attributes a crime to another, knowing it to be false or with reckless disregard for the truth, before an official with a duty to prosecute it, with a fine of twelve to twenty-four months where the crime attributed is a less serious one, as slander and libel are, and it can only be prosecuted after a final judgment or a final dismissal order in the proceedings you started. A querella dismissed because the expression was not serious is not a false accusation. A querella attributing invented facts to the other person can be, and it also allows them to file a libel querella against you. That is why a querella is drafted around what can be proven.
A template defamation complaint, why it will not help you
The templates in circulation are police report forms, and what the court demands is a querella meeting the requirements of article 277 of the Criminal Procedure Act, signed by a lawyer and a court agent, with the statement of facts, the legal classification, the evidence requested and the conciliation certificate. A template does not decide whether what was written is serious slander or a value judgement, whether to classify it as libel or slander, which court has jurisdiction when the author lives in another province or how to request the identification of a profile’s holder, and a badly framed filing burns through the only year available. That drafting is the lawyer’s job.
Frequently asked questions
How do I file a complaint for slander and libel in Spain?
Through a querella, signed by a lawyer and a court agent, after attempting a conciliation hearing with the author, because article 215 of the Criminal Code allows no other route except against public officials over matters of their office. First secure the evidence with screenshots and a notarial certificate of the post. The querella must be filed within one year of publication.
Where is a complaint for slander and libel filed?
Before the competent investigating court, by querella, and not at a police station or with the public prosecutor, who cannot open proceedings for a private offence. The prior conciliation is requested at the judicial office that corresponds after Organic Law 1/2025. If the offence includes threats or harassment, those crimes can be reported to the police.
What is a complaint for slander and libel?
It is the everyday name for the criminal action against someone who has slandered you (article 208 of the Criminal Code) or libelled you (article 205), although technically it is a querella, because they are private offences prosecuted only at the request of the offended person. Libel attributes a false crime and slander injures dignity through serious expressions.
Where can I make a complaint for slander and libel?
Before the court of the place where the offence was committed, and for online posts the Supreme Court applies the ubiquity doctrine, under which the offence is deemed committed both where it was published and where the harm occurred, which normally allows action in the victim’s own city. Jurisdiction is fixed by the lawyer in the querella.
Can I report it at a police station or to the Guardia Civil, or will they turn me away because it is a private offence?
They will take your report because they are obliged to, but it will not open the proceedings, because slander and libel require a querella from the victim (article 215 of the Criminal Code) and the court will close the file or direct you to file one. It only helps where there are also public offences, such as threats or harassment, or where you are a public official and the offence concerns your post.
A one-year deadline and a querella drafted by a lawyer
What needs doing now is fixing the evidence with a notarial certificate before the post disappears and confirming how much of the article 131 year remains, because the conciliation, the legal classification and the choice between a querella and a civil claim are all built on those two things. At the firm we review the post, tell you whether it clears the criminal threshold, which route suits your case and what you can obtain, and from there we conduct the prosecution or bring the civil claim. You can reach us on +34 677 841 007 or through our contact page, and what we do in this field is set out under criminal law and cybercrime.