This Friday, Parliament rejected several bills to make rape a public offense and clear charges, despite unanimously approving stronger protections for victims of crimes against sexual freedom.
At a plenary meeting held in the Assembly of the Republic, the Eskerda Bloc (BE) decided to revoke its diploma, which stipulated that rape, sexual coercion and sexual abuse of a person unable to resist would become public crimes.
A similar Liberal Initiative (IL) bill was put to the vote and ultimately defeated by the PS, PSD and PCP, although the Liberals received favorable votes from BE, PAN, Chega and Livre, in addition to abstaining from the Social Democrats’ bench. The same vote will be repeated for the PAN diploma to reinforce the public nature of rape and other crimes against sexual freedom.
Chega also saw PS, PSD and PCP fail their bill to change criminal laws to provide more protection to victims of sex crimes. Only Chega, IL and PAN voted for the diploma and BE, Livre and MP Joan Barata López (PSD) abstained.
However, Parliament will unanimously approve the final text of the Commission on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees of the PS Bill on Strengthening the Protection of Victims of Sexual Freedom Crimes, with subsequent amendments to the Criminal Law Code and the Law on Access to Law and Courts.
With respect to this issue, BE held a plenary vote on three amendment proposals, with amendments and additions to the draft PS that the first committee was working on. However, all blocker proposals were rejected.
Thus, the crime of rape remains semi-public, and the final text, approved this Friday, provides that “when the procedure for committing the offenses provided for in Articles 163. [coação sexual] and 164th [violação] depends on the complaint, the prosecutor’s office may initiate it within one year from the date on which it became aware of this fact and the persons who committed it, when the interests of the victim so require.
The Diploma that the first commission was working on also extended the deadline for filing a complaint from the current six months to one year. It was also determined to create a greenway to access the law, exempting victims from proving economic insolvency, similar to what happens to victims of domestic violence.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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