Spain’s Supreme Court found that kissing without consent constitutes sexual assault in a ruling announced Tuesday, months before the trial of former Spanish football federation president Luis Rubiales for kissing a player.
In the ruling, the court determined that “the key is consent, to the point that if it does not occur, sexual assault will occur.”
The verdict relates to a case in which a police officer was found guilty of kissing a detainee on the cheek without her consent and then attempting to kiss her on the lips.
The police officer filed an appeal, and with this decision the Supreme Court confirmed the verdict of the first instance.
The Supreme Court held that “it is no longer a question of assessing whether there was ‘opposition on the part of the victim’ to a sexual act” because “the key issue, instead, is whether there was consent.”
According to the Supreme Court, no one has the right to approach a person “and kiss him without the victim acknowledging it, as evidence of affection and affection,” under any circumstances.
Rather, for the Supreme Court, it is “a personal attack on your intimacy and sexual freedom to give or withhold consent to anyone who may approach you for an act as intimate and personal as kissing.”
The court also found that the police officer took advantage of the fact that the victim was “in a hostile environment because he was unknown” to kiss her.
The former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), Luis Rubiales, will stand trial in February 2025 in Madrid for the alleged sexual assault of footballer Jenny Hermoso.
Rubiales is charged with crimes of sexual assault and coercion and faces a sentence of two and a half years in prison.
The prosecution believes that the kiss on the lips given by the former RFEF director to player Jenny Hermoso at the Sydney stadium after winning the FIFA Women’s World Cup title with Spain in August 2023 was “not consensual”, classifying it as a “unilateral and sudden act”.
In addition to Luis Rubiales, men’s national team director Albert Luque, former women’s coach Jorge Wilda and former federation marketing director Ruben Rivera are also on trial for pressuring the player.
Prosecutors believe that, with the connivance of Luis Rubiales, there was a concerted effort between them “to break the will of Jenny Hermoso and force the player to record a video saying that the kiss was consensual.”
Following the events of the August 20, 2023 FIFA World Cup final, the director, who initially refused to resign from his position, which was due to happen on September 10, said it was a small, consensual kiss and said he was the target of a “false feminism.”
However, on October 30, FIFA suspended Luis Rubiales from all football-related activities, later rejecting an appeal filed by the former president.