Bill 628.

Summary.

The bill would amend the Criminal Code (Código Penal) to govern access to alternatives to serving a prison sentence. Proposed Article 57 would allow the enforcement judge to authorize a sentenced person’s voluntary participation in study or work programs inside or outside prison, taking account of recommendations from the Penitentiary Technical Board (Junta Técnica Penitenciaria) and the person’s conduct. People who commit the offenses listed in Article 73 would be excluded. The permitted activities include education leading to academic progress, unpaid community work, and service as an instructor in literacy, education, training or skills courses. For instructor service, every eight hours worked would count as one day of work.

The proposed amendment to Article 73 retains the definition of disqualification from public office as a temporary bar on holding public positions or employment and elected office. It would also exclude femicide, aggravated homicide in cases of gender violence, rape, aggravated rape, and aggravated sexual abuse resulting in death from sentence substitution, commutation or replacement, including day fines, community work and weekend detention.

Proposed Article 132-A would punish a person who causes a woman’s death in any of its listed circumstances with thirty to fifty years in prison. Those circumstances include a relationship or family tie with the victim; a position of trust or a work or teaching relationship; commission of the act in the presence of her children; exploitation of her vulnerability; group rituals or revenge; acts involving her body; exposure of her body or her isolation before death; concealment of a rape; pregnancy; and a motive arising from her status as a woman or from unequal power relations.

The amendment to Article 176 would impose ten to fifteen years in prison on a person who uses a position of advantage to obtain sexual access to someone older than fourteen and younger than eighteen, even with consent. It would increase the sentence by one third up to half of the maximum where the offender has a specified family, religious, educational or caregiving role; the victim becomes pregnant or contracts a sexually transmitted disease; the offense causes the victim to leave school; or a deceptive promise of marriage is used to obtain consent.

New Article 177-A would punish a death caused directly or indirectly by rape or aggravated sexual acts with forty to fifty years in prison. Where the offender is a close relative, has responsibility for the victim’s custody, upbringing or temporary care, exercises domination, or exploits vulnerability, the sentence could not be less than forty-five years. The offender would be ineligible for sentence substitution, commutation, parole, community work or any other prison benefit. The final provisions identify the Criminal Code amendments and addition, direct the Executive Branch (Órgano Ejecutivo) to prepare a consolidated text, and set promulgation as the date the proposed law would take effect. The bill concerns the Penitentiary Technical Board, the Executive Branch, criminal justice authorities, prisons, victims of sexual offenses and gender violence, and people sentenced for those offenses.