Spanish Criminal Justice System: Courts and Jurisdiction Explained
Item 4
Jurisdiction.
CRIMINAL ENFORCEMENT BODY JURISDICTIONAL
Justices of the Peace: There are as many municipalities. They are formed by single-member court lay judges, exercise jurisdiction in all municipalities in Spain where there is no trial courts. The magistrate is elected by the council. They have a limited mandate. Their competition is minimal. They handle faltas (minor offenses). It is not certain if they must be qualified in law. Their appointment is elected by the village government of superior court.
Coroner’s courts: Trained judges from the judiciary. They instruct all criminal cases. They conduct investigations, taking all necessary precautionary measures. They hear and judge in all proceedings for misconduct. In large cities, there are courts of first instance courts for civil and criminal instruction (separated).
Criminal Court: Created in 1988, there is one minimum in each provincial capital. There may be criminal courts in cities that are important and which are not provincial capital, ex. Sabadell, Granollers. They are single-member tribunals comprising judges of the race. Their jurisdiction is failing and enforcing judgments of so-called petty crimes. These crimes are those for which the law establishes a penalty not exceeding 5 years of deprivation of liberty. They dictate sentences that can be appealed to the provincial court.
Provincial: Collegial organ composed of three professional judges. Located in the capital of a province, it has jurisdiction in the territory of the province. Powers of the provincial court: they are aware of the appeals against the judgments of criminal courts. They handle cases of appeal against the sentences in trials of offenses unions by magistrates. They have knowledge and failure of all criminal proceedings in which they have brought crime to pursue a punishment greater than 5 years.
Criminal chambers of Superior Court (los Tribunales): There is one in each capital city. They are autonomous organs that are composed of multi-person (3 or more) judges of the race. They try offenses committed by persons who graduated in exercise of his office commits certain delitos (crimes). Judges, prosecutors.
Second Chamber of the Supreme Court: Collegial Court comprising 10 or more professional judges. Their traditional competition is the knowledge of the appeals against the judgments of the provincial courts and the criminal division of the courts of justice superioores. They are aware of the processes of certain persons graduated. Government ministers, deputies.
* Central Court of Investigation. Jurisdiction throughout the national territory. The Socionics are those who have attributed the trial courts. They have jurisdiction only for the instruction of a small number of crimes: organized crime and terrorist crime. They are composed of one professional judge. Their functions are to judge instruction in the denomination of the d d organized terrorist.
Central criminal court. Its competition is the same as a criminal court. They have knowledge, adjudication and execution of the sentences of those terrorists or organized crime offenses punishable by less than 5 years of deprivation of liberty. There is a central criminal court in Madrid and it is composed of a professional judge.
Criminal division of the national audience. There is one in Madrid. It is a collegial body made up of 3 or more judges. Its powers are those of a provincial audience. It extends to the territory and only limited to terrorist crimes and organized crime. Its competence is to know the public trial of the processes for which the penalty of deprivation of liberty is over 5 years.
Juvenile court. There are one or several in each provincial capital. They are organs formed by a one-person professional judge usually specialized. Correction measures are imposed to minors that are proportional to the equivalent penalty.
Domestic violence. The same as above, i.e. J Peace Juzgado Instruction, J of the criminal. But its jurisdiction is domestic violence.
Courts prison supervision. There is usually one in each provincial capital. They are where the prison
Central juvenile court. There’s one in Madrid, it consists of a judge. Its function is the same as a central court instruction but for offenses committed by juveniles.
Criminal division of the provincial court. They are aware of the appeals against the judgments of central juvenile court.
Second Chamber of the supreme court. They are aware of the appeals for unification of doctrine against the judgments of the provincial courts or the criminal division of the provincial court.
Competition
Who is the competent judge?: The trial judge is required by law, by matter, by the person, the crime scene, the stage of the process will pass to one or another judge.
Therefore, if a judge concerned processes a sentence will depend on because it is not competent to proceed or not, although in principle the decision would be invalid. Therefore we must make clear the objective competence, the territorial and functional.
There are three criteria to determine competence:
Functional Competence: Determines who knows the various stages of the process and resources.
Competition objective: Vertical approach helps us determine which court should know when there are multiple instances.
Jurisdiction: Horizontal approach that helps us determine the competent court (the court normally has jurisdiction where it commits a misdemeanor or felony).
The existence of several types of courts respond to different circumstances that define the criteria for distribution of competence:
Matter jurisdiction, are distributed processes to prosecute criminal offenses taking into account the nature or type of offenses (felonies or misdemeanors), the amount of the penalty that may be, and the person against whom it is directed the process (if there are people graduated or not). Of these three criteria appear objectively competent tribunal. In terms of faults corresponds to the magistrates and justices of the peace. In terms of crime, art. 14 serves the penalty criterion:
Functional authority is distributed by the competition within the different roles they must assume the judges. It is automatic and derivative. Judges and courts having jurisdiction over a cause, will also have implications for all phases. In crimes and processes there are two phases:
Instruction (magistrates)
Trial (judges in criminal or Provincial Court)
If they are ad hoc tribunals, P. eg. National Court, there is a Central Court of Investigation (preliminary investigation), then known as the penalty or the Central Court of Investigation or the criminal division.
Jurisdiction, the award criteria for ascribing knowledge territorially a process to a specific court jurisdictions are called. Jurisdiction Preferred is where the offense was committed. Be taken provisionally as fixed effects of competition on the basis of territory without prejudging ultimately reach what the court has jurisdiction, so that during training the local jurisdiction may be amended.