Article 132 Spanish Criminal Code: running of limitation periods

1. The periods laid down in the preceding article shall run from the day on which the punishable offence was committed. In cases of continuing offences, permanent offences and offences requiring habitual conduct, the periods shall run, respectively, from the day of the last offence, from the removal of the unlawful situation or from the cessation of the conduct.

In offences of non-consensual abortion, injury, offences against liberty, torture and offences against moral integrity, privacy, the right to one’s own image and the inviolability of the home, and offences against family relations, excluding those covered by the following paragraph, where the victim is under eighteen, the periods shall run from the day the victim reaches majority, and if the victim dies before reaching it, from the date of death.

In offences of attempted homicide, injury under Articles 149 and 150, habitual ill-treatment under Article 173.2, offences against sexual liberty and trafficking in human beings, where the victim is under eighteen, the periods shall run from the day the victim turns thirty-five, and if the victim dies before that age, from the date of death.

2. Limitation shall be interrupted, the time elapsed becoming void, when the proceedings are directed against the person allegedly responsible for the offence, and shall start to run again from the moment the proceedings are stayed or end without conviction, in accordance with the following rules:

1. Proceedings shall be deemed directed against a specific person from the moment when, on opening the case or later, a reasoned judicial decision is issued attributing to that person their alleged participation in an act that may constitute an offence.

2. Nevertheless, the filing of a complaint or criminal information before a judicial body, attributing to a specific person their alleged participation in an act that may constitute an offence, shall suspend the running of the limitation period for a maximum of six months from that filing.

If, within that period, one of the judicial decisions mentioned in rule 1 is issued against the complained-of or reported person, or against any other person involved in the acts, the interruption shall be deemed to have occurred retroactively, for all purposes, on the date of filing of the complaint or information.

Conversely, the limitation period shall continue to run from the date of filing if, within six months, a final judicial decision is issued refusing to admit the complaint or information or deciding not to direct the proceedings against the person concerned. It shall also continue if, within that period, the investigating judge takes none of the decisions provided for in this article.

3. For the purposes of this article, the person against whom the proceedings are directed must be sufficiently identified in the judicial decision, whether directly or through data allowing their later identification within the organisation or group of persons to whom the act is attributed.

4. In proceedings whose investigation has been taken over by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, limitation shall be interrupted:

a) when the investigation is directed against a specific, sufficiently identified person, under the terms of the preceding paragraph, and this is reflected in a reasoned decree.

b) when a complaint or criminal information is filed before the European Public Prosecutor’s Office attributing to a specific person their alleged participation in an act that may constitute an offence, rule 2 of paragraph 2 of this article then applying.

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: Organic Law 10/1995 of 23 November, the Spanish Criminal Code.