15 May 2008

MADRID - The Constitutional Court has approved the controversial Gender Violence Law, which allows judges to impose harsher sentences on men convicted of domestic violence against their partners than a woman would face for the same crime.

The constitutionality of the law was first raised by a Murcia judge in 2005, after it was claimed that it undermined the equality of male defendants in the eyes of the law. However, the argument that men do more harm in such cases than women won through with the judges on the Constitutional Court.

Of the 12 judges on the court, seven voted in favour of the constitutionality of the law, with five voting against. That was sufficient to reject the 127 claims of unconstitutionality that have been filed by judges since the law was passed in 2005.

[El Pais / Julio M. Lazaro / Expatica]