If the assault happened yesterday and you still have no medical injury report, the court will classify the facts on whatever the police file contains, and the forensic doctor will have nothing to work from. The Spanish fast-track trial for assault, the juicio rápido governed by articles 795 to 803 of the Criminal Procedure Act (LECrim), takes the facts from the police report to the duty court within hours and from there to judgment within a few weeks, so whatever is done or left undone today reaches the trial unchanged. It applies to the offence of bodily harm under article 147.1 of the Criminal Code, injuries that require medical or surgical treatment, punishable with three months to three years in prison or a fine of six to twelve months, and the accused may plead guilty before the duty judge in exchange for a one-third reduction of the sentence. If the injury needed no treatment, the case goes down a different route, the minor-offence trial, which changes the penalty, the deadlines and even whether there are proceedings at all.
The medical injury report and what else you can secure today
The medical injury report, the parte de lesiones, is the piece of evidence that organises everything else, for the person attacked and for the person reported. Go to a health centre or an emergency department even if the injury looks slight and ask that the report describe every injury, its location and the treatment prescribed, because the line between a minor offence and a less serious offence lies in whether there was medical or surgical treatment beyond first aid, and the forensic doctor reads that from this document. If you have been reported and you were hurt as well, you need the report just as much, a fight with injuries on both sides is judged differently from a one-sided attack. Keep the messages and calls from before and after the incident without deleting any, including those that do not help you, because the other side will have them and an incomplete conversation turns against you. Write down today the name or description of anyone present and, if there are cameras in the premises or in the street, ask the owner in writing to preserve the footage, which many systems erase within days. Do not call the other person to sort it out, do not offer or accept money by message and do not post anything. If you are summoned to make a statement, you may exercise your right not to answer until you have spoken to a lawyer, and you may appoint a private lawyer at any time even if a duty lawyer has already been assigned to you.
Fast-track trial for bodily harm, when your case goes down that route
Article 795 LECrim sets the requirements. There must be a police report, the suspect must be under arrest or have been summoned by the police to appear before the duty court, the possible sentence may not exceed five years in prison, and the offence must be flagrant, appear on the list in the article itself or be presumed simple to investigate. Bodily harm is expressly on that list when the victim is one of the persons in article 173.2 of the Criminal Code, a partner or cohabiting relatives, and in all other cases it qualifies through flagrancy or simplicity, which is the norm in a fight with an injury report, identified witnesses and someone arrested or summoned. If the investigation becomes complicated, because several people are involved with conflicting accounts or the forensic doctor needs time to assess lasting damage, the duty judge converts the case into ordinary preliminary proceedings under the abbreviated procedure and the timescale goes from weeks to months.
The sequence is the same one followed by other offences that commonly reach the duty court. The police carry out the steps in article 796, summon witnesses and the injured party and bring the arrested person before the court within the maximum detention period of seventy-two hours. At the duty court, under article 797, the judge takes the suspect’s statement, hears the victim and the witnesses and obtains the forensic doctor’s report, the document that fixes how many days the injuries took to heal and whether any permanent damage remains. On that basis, article 798 requires an immediate decision on whether the case continues as a fast-track trial, is converted or is closed. If it continues, the prosecutor files charges and the accused can plead guilty on the spot or go to trial before the Criminal Court (Juzgado de lo Penal), which article 800 requires to be scheduled within the following fifteen days. Fewer than three weeks may pass between the incident and the judgment, and in that time there is no room to track down witnesses or request medical reports that were not requested at the start.
Fast-track trial for minor injuries, or why the name misleads
What people call a «fast-track trial for minor injuries» or a «fast-track trial for a minor offence of bodily harm» is almost never a fast-track trial. If the injury needed no medical or surgical treatment, a bruise, a scratch, a lip that heals on its own, we are in the minor offence of bodily harm under article 147.2 of the Criminal Code, punishable with a fine of one to three months. If there was a blow or a push but no injury resulted, the act is physical mistreatment under article 147.3, with a fine of one to two months. These two minor offences have a decisive feature, paragraph 4 of the same article 147 provides that they may only be prosecuted on a complaint by the injured person, so without a complaint there are no proceedings, and the victim’s pardon before judgment, provided for in article 130.1.5º of the Criminal Code, extinguishes liability.
The route is the minor-offence trial under articles 962 to 977 LECrim. When the police intervene immediately, article 962 provides that they summon complainant, accused and witnesses directly before the duty court so the trial can be held there and then, and article 964 allows the duty judge to do the same with a police report that arrives without an arrest. That immediacy is what gets confused with the fast-track trial, but the differences go to the substance. In a minor offence a lawyer is not compulsory, article 967 only informs you that you may attend with one, there is no prison at stake, the examining court itself passes sentence and the limitation period is one year against five for article 147.1. The judgment can be appealed within five days. A minor offence is not harmless for that, it leaves a criminal record, even if it is expunged after six months, it carries civil liability and, if the victim is a partner or relative under article 173.2, it stops being minor and moves to article 153, which carries prison, as I explain in the piece on being accused of gender violence. In those cases threats or coercion are usually reported alongside the injuries, and the whole does go to a fast-track trial.
The penalties, article by article
Article 147.1 carries three months to three years in prison or a fine of six to twelve months, and the choice between the two, which in practice decides whether there is a real risk of prison, depends on the seriousness of the result and on the accused’s record. Article 148 raises the penalty to two to five years in prison, with no fine alternative, where weapons, instruments or objects specifically dangerous to life or health were used, a broken glass, a bottle, a helmet, where there was cruelty or treachery, where the victim is under fourteen or a disabled person in need of special protection, where the victim is or was the perpetrator’s wife or partner, or where the victim is an especially vulnerable person living with the perpetrator. With an object in hand the penalty can no longer be a fine, although the fast-track trial remains available because the maximum does not exceed five years. Injuries caused by gross negligence, without intent, fall under article 152, are punished, for article 147.1 injuries, with three to six months in prison or a fine of six to eighteen months, and may only be prosecuted on a complaint.
| Criminal Code article | What it punishes | Penalty | Usual route |
|---|---|---|---|
| 147.3 | Striking or physically mistreating without causing injury | Fine of one to two months | Minor-offence trial, complaint required |
| 147.2 | Injury not requiring medical or surgical treatment | Fine of one to three months | Minor-offence trial, complaint required |
| 147.1 | Injury requiring medical or surgical treatment | Three months to three years in prison or fine of six to twelve months | Fast-track trial or preliminary proceedings |
| 148 | Article 147.1 injury with a weapon or dangerous object, cruelty, treachery or vulnerable victim | Two to five years in prison | Fast-track trial or preliminary proceedings |
| 153.1 | Minor injury or physical mistreatment of a wife, partner or vulnerable cohabitant | Six months to one year in prison or thirty-one to eighty days of community service | Fast-track trial |
Article 153 turns into an offence carrying prison what between strangers would be a fine. A push or a slap to a partner or former partner, with no injury or a minor one, is punished with the penalty in the table plus disqualification from holding weapons and, where applicable, from parental authority, and between other cohabiting relatives paragraph 2 sets three months to one year in prison. Our firm conducts the criminal defence in these cases from the first statement, which is where the account that will reach the trial becomes fixed, and the detail of what we do is on the criminal law page.
Mutual fights, brawls and self-defence
«I didn’t start it» is the sentence most often heard at a duty court in an assault case and, on its own, it does not acquit. Self-defence under article 20.4º of the Criminal Code requires an unlawful attack that is current or imminent, rational necessity of the means used to prevent or repel it, and absence of sufficient provocation by the person defending. Someone who hits back once the attacker is already withdrawing, or answers a push with an object, loses the complete defence, although the incomplete version under article 21.1ª may remain, lowering the sentence by one or two degrees. A mutually accepted brawl, where both parties seek the fight, excludes self-defence for both according to settled Supreme Court case law, and each then answers for the injuries caused to the other. That is why, when both sides produce an injury report, cross-complaints are common, and they are normally joined and tried in the same proceedings, with each person as accused and injured party at once.
Without witnesses outside the parties, the trial is decided on the consistency of each account, each side’s injury report and whether what each person says fits the injuries the other presents. An injury to the back of the head does not match a face-to-face confrontation, and an injury report from the accused that was not produced at the duty court is very hard to bring in later to a trial held within fifteen days. That fit is built in the statement at the duty court, and it is the reason the lawyer has to be there before you speak.
Pleading guilty at the duty court, the one-third discount and what you give up
Article 801 LECrim allows the accused to accept, before the duty judge, the sentence requested by the prosecutor, in which case the sentence is reduced by one third. It is only available if the requested sentence does not exceed three years in prison, is a fine, or is of another kind with a maximum of ten years, and if, once reduced, the prison term does not exceed two years, which allows the duty judge to decide on its suspension in the same judgment. For article 147.1 injuries with a request for one year in prison, the plea leaves eight months and, with no record, a suspended sentence. Mitigating circumstances proven beforehand are added to the one-third discount. Repairing the harm under article 21.5ª of the Criminal Code, paying or lodging the compensation before trial, is the most useful, while confession under article 21.4ª only operates if you confessed before knowing that proceedings were directed at you, which rarely happens when you arrive under arrest. One mitigating circumstance takes the sentence to the lower half, two or one very qualified lower it by one or two degrees, and the one third is applied on that result.
What you hand over in return matters. A plea judgment is final in practice, because it can only be appealed if the plea requirements were not respected or the sentence imposed does not match the one accepted, never to dispute the facts. The accused admits the facts as the prosecutor describes them, civil liability is fixed in that same judgment and a criminal record remains, suspended sentence or not. If there is no plea at the duty court, one can still be entered before the Criminal Court at the start of the trial, but without the one-third discount. Deciding in minutes, with the prosecutor in front of you, whether to accept or fight requires knowing what evidence each side holds, and that is what the lawyer must have checked before the statement.
Restraining orders, criminal record and suspension of prison
The duty judge may impose on the spot, as a precautionary measure under article 544 bis LECrim, a ban on approaching or contacting the complainant for the duration of the proceedings, even if the incident was a fight between strangers, and where the victim is a partner or relative the protection order under article 544 ter is the norm. In the judgment, article 57 of the Criminal Code allows the prohibitions in article 48 to be imposed in bodily harm cases, approaching the victim, her home or her workplace and communicating with her, for up to five years in less serious offences and six months in minor ones, and makes them compulsory where the victim falls under article 173.2. Breaching the order is a separate offence under article 468.
A prison sentence is suspended, under article 80 of the Criminal Code, where the convicted person is a first offender, the sentence or the sum of those imposed does not exceed two years and the civil liability has been paid or there is a commitment to pay it. Suspension lasts two to five years, may be conditioned on staying away from the victim or completing a programme, and is revoked if a new offence is committed in that period. Fines are set in days, with a daily rate of two to four hundred euros according to the convicted person’s means, article 50.6 allows payment in instalments and article 53 punishes non-payment with one day of deprivation of liberty for every two unpaid daily units, which in minor offences is served by home detention or community service. The record is expunged, under article 136, after six months for minor penalties, two years for penalties not exceeding twelve months and three years for other less serious penalties below three years, counted from the date the sentence was served and provided no new offence has been committed.
The victim’s compensation, how it is calculated and who pays
Every conviction for bodily harm carries civil liability under articles 109 to 116 of the Criminal Code, which article 110 breaks down into restitution, repair of the damage and compensation for material and moral harm. In injury cases that translates into the days the victim took to heal, distinguishing hospital days, days unable to lead a normal life and days able to, lasting damage, cosmetic harm and proven medical expenses and lost income. The figures for days and lasting damage are set by the forensic doctor in the report, which is why the initial injury report and the follow-up reports are what supports the amount. Courts take as a guide the scale in Law 35/2015, designed for traffic accidents, and in intentional injuries tend to apply it generously, but the sum is fixed by the judge at the request of the prosecutor or the private prosecution. If the injured person does not appear with a lawyer, the prosecutor claims the compensation on their behalf, and that claim is frequently the minimum derived from the forensic report, with no expenses or lost earnings that nobody proved. Anyone who wants something other than that minimum has to claim it within the criminal proceedings, because the judgment closes the question.
If the convicted person does not pay, the judgment is enforced like any debt, by attaching wages, accounts or assets. Where the person is genuinely insolvent, the victim does not recover, with two exceptions. If the assault caused serious injuries resulting in incapacity, Law 35/1995 on aid to victims of violent crime provides public assistance, and if the perpetrator wants the prison sentence suspended, payment or a commitment to pay the compensation is a condition, which makes civil liability the first thing to be paid. If you fail to appear as the accused, having been summoned in person and with a requested sentence of up to two years, the trial can go ahead without you and the judgment binds you all the same, and if the complainant in a minor offence fails to appear without justification, the usual outcome is acquittal.
Frequently asked questions
Is my case a fast-track trial or a minor-offence trial? What decides whether an injury is a minor or a less serious offence?
It depends on whether the injury needed medical or surgical treatment beyond first aid. If it did, it is the less serious offence under article 147.1 of the Criminal Code and goes to a fast-track trial or preliminary proceedings. If first aid was enough, or there was no injury, it is a minor offence under articles 147.2 and 147.3 and is handled through the minor-offence trial under articles 962 et seq. LECrim.
If the injury is minor and the other person does not report it, are there proceedings? Can the complaint be withdrawn and what effect does that have?
Without a complaint from the injured person there are no proceedings for a minor offence of bodily harm, because article 147.4 of the Criminal Code requires that complaint. If they withdraw it or grant a pardon before judgment, the case is closed. For the less serious offence under article 147.1 the opposite applies, it is prosecuted ex officio and withdrawing the complaint does not stop it, even if the complainant stops cooperating.
If you have been arrested or summoned, the statement at the duty court is the first irreversible decision in the proceedings and a lawyer has to prepare it before you speak. If you are the injured party, the compensation is decided in those same proceedings and has to be claimed within them, with the forensic report and the documented expenses. Our firm conducts both the defence and the private prosecution in criminal law cases and attends at the duty court. You can put your case to us on +34 677 841 007 or through our contact page.