Los Servicios de "Granda & Asociados"

Summary Trial

Crime junction: Especially in lesions.

It is a procedure of double instances (appeal resort is contemplated):

In principle an instruction phase does not exist, though in the practice there are certain diligences of investigation.

In the procedure an accusatorial principle can be applied though due to the redaction of article 969. 2 of the Law for Criminal Trials it is not quite clear, and for this reason it has been necessary for the Constitutional Courts to intervene on the matter.

The summary trials will start from a conversion of another procedure, from a police statement, from a complaint or private prosecution (that does not need the signature of lawyer or prosecutor).

The initial trials or the peace trials will summon the parties for an oral trial with a copy of the private prosecution or at least with a concise relation of the facts based upon the complaint or prosecution. In the summary trial there is no provisional qualification stage, and this is why what was mentioned before is necessary.

In an oral trial, the facts on which the complaint or prosecution were based upon or the complaint itself are read. This is the moment were the district attorney must qualify the facts and carry out an accusation but a problem arises thanks to article 969.2 where it states that the General attorney of the State may order attorneys to not assist summary trials when the facts demand the victim’s complaint. In these cases, the complaint will have to take over in the accusation and this could be unconstitutional because in the complaints sentences are not asked nor are the facts qualified, may not even be meant for a specific person. So the judge would be the one accusing and this is not the intention of the accusatory principle.