More Judges and Prosecutors to Tackle the Backlog in Domestic Violence Courts

The backlog in domestic violence courts has prompted the government to bolster these courts from autumn with 50 new judges and 42 prosecutors, although they are expected to be fully operational by the end of 2025. In line with the analysis of new workloads in each territory identified by the CGPJ, the royal decree of June 3 plans to allocate ten new positions to Andalusia, followed by Madrid with six, and the Valencian Community with five. Catalonia, Galicia, and the Canary Islands will each have four new positions, while Castilla-La Mancha, the Balearic Islands, and Extremadura will have three positions. Murcia and Castilla y León will each have two more positions, and finally, Aragon, Asturias, Cantabria, and the Basque Country will receive one position each.

This measure, driven by the Ministry of Justice and designed in collaboration with the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), aims to strengthen domestic violence courts so they can handle all cases against the sexual freedom of Spanish women starting in October. Until now, these courts, in addition to all gender violence complaints, only prosecuted sexual crimes against women caused by their partners or ex-partners.

Gender violence resulted in the death of one woman every 7.6 days during 2024, according to recent CGPJ data. On average, they were 44 years old (ranging from 15 to 76 years) and lived with their partner or ex (66.7%). Half were of Spanish nationality, leaving behind 40 orphaned minors. Despite the grim statistic, last year recorded the lowest number of female deaths. Compared to the total gathered over the past 22 years, there was a clear decline in femicides. Between 2003 and 2013, there were an average of 65.9, and in the following ten years, the annual average was 52.4.

However, despite a 17% decrease compared to 2023, it is "an intolerable figure that highlights the need to continue maintaining and improving public protection policies for victims of gender violence."

A third of the women had reported their aggressors (15 of the 48 murdered), but eight continued living with their aggressor at the time of the crime, despite five cases having a restraining order in effect. The complainants had an average age of 40 years (ranging from 26 to 45 years).

The Observatory against Domestic and Gender Violence contrasts this reality with another: in the same period, only four men were murdered by their partners or ex (women) in a domestic violence context. Twelve times less. There were no such crimes among homosexual couples.

The new judicial structure is a mandate of the Law on Efficiency of the Public Justice Service, approved this year, and the 'only yes is yes' law, in effect since 2022, which expands the jurisdiction of these specialized courts to all crimes against sexual freedom provided for in the Penal Code and to crimes of female genital mutilation, forced marriage, and sexual harassment with female victims. Additionally, they will also handle crimes of violence against children and adolescents when linked to a case of gender violence.

The Royal Decree expands the judges of this specialty by 50 positions, of which 42 are newly created and the other eight are the result of transforming instruction courts into domestic violence courts in the same judicial district. Each new judge position is accompanied by the creation of another specialized prosecutor position, thus adding 42 new specialists to the Public Prosecutor's Office staff.

Most of the positions created today will begin functioning on December 31, coinciding with the implementation of the new judicial structure in instance courts and specialized sections, and will result in an increase in domestic violence courts by nearly 45%, given that there are currently 116 across the country.

The expansion of courts in this specialty is based on a study conducted by the CGPJ, which predicted that the increase in the jurisdiction of domestic violence courts would result in an average 13% increase in workload nationwide. In fact, 135 specialized gender violence judges from across Spain signed a letter last March stating that with the legal change, the workload would increase by 20% and that if a sufficient number of new specialized courts were not created, they were heading towards a "total collapse." Barcelona and Malaga.