Article 384 Spanish Criminal Procedure Act: Formal charging in the ordinary procedure

As soon as any rational indication of criminality against a particular person results from the investigation, an order shall be handed down declaring that person formally charged and directing that the proceedings be conducted with that person in the form and manner provided for in this Title and in the others of this Act.

The person formally charged may, from the moment of becoming so, take the advice of counsel, so long as not held incommunicado, and make use of counsel either in order to press for the prompt conclusion of the investigation or in order to seek the taking of steps of interest to that person and to formulate claims affecting the situation of that person. In the first case a complaint may be lodged with the provincial court, and in the other two an appeal may be brought before that court if the investigating judge does not accede to the request.

Those appeals shall be admissible in a single effect only.

In order to comply with the provisions of this article, the investigating judge shall direct that a person formally charged who is a minor be provided with a court agent and counsel, unless that person or the legal representative of that person designates persons deserving of their confidence for that representation and defence.

Against the orders handed down by the investigating judges ordering the formal charging of a person, the representation of that person may make use of the remedy of reform within the three days following that on which the decision was notified; and against orders refusing the reform an appeal in a single effect may be lodged within the five days following that of the notification of the refusing order to the appellant representation. The appeal in a single effect may also be lodged in the alternative together with the remedy of reform, in which case the investigating judge shall declare the former admitted upon refusing the latter. If the reform is granted, the formal charges previously ordered ceasing to have effect, the provisions of the following subparagraph shall apply as regards the reproduction of the application for formal charging before the provincial court.

Against orders refusing formal charging, only the remedy of reform shall be granted to the person who applied for it, to be used within the three days following that of the notification. Against orders refusing the reform so sought, neither an appeal nor any other remedy may be used; but the application for formal charging made by the party to whom it has been refused may be reproduced before the corresponding provincial court where, having appeared before that court, if that right is exercised, the party responds to the transfer referred to in Article 627 of this same Act, precisely within the term for which that transfer has been conferred. The court, in such cases, upon handing down the order required by Article 630, shall determine with reasons what is appropriate; and, without being able to leave the decision to the discretion of the investigating judge, where it considers the declarations of formal charging sought to be appropriate, it shall direct the investigating judge to make them. Those formally charged to whom those decisions of the investigating judge relate may make direct use of the appeal in a single effect, without the need for the prior use of the remedy of reform.

Where the determination of the remedy of reform lodged against an order refusing formal charging is favourable to the appellant and, accordingly, the formal charging first sought is ordered, the representations of those formally charged whom it affects may, against the decision so declaring, make use of the same remedies of reform and appeal granted to those formally charged directly in this same article.

Working translation prepared by Société Juridique from the consolidated Spanish text published by the Official State Gazette. It has no official status: the only authoritative version is the Spanish original, available at the Official State Gazette and reproduced verbatim in our Spanish-language entry for this provision. Source: Royal Decree of 14 September 1882 approving the Spanish Criminal Procedure Act.