Article 173 Spanish Criminal Code: Degrading Treatment and Habitual Domestic Violence

1. A person who inflicts degrading treatment on another, seriously impairing that person’s moral integrity, shall be punished with imprisonment of six months to two years.

The same penalty shall be imposed on those who, knowing the whereabouts of the body of a deceased person, repeatedly conceal that information from the relatives or close associates of that person.

The same penalty shall be imposed on those who, in the context of any employment or public service relationship and taking advantage of their position of superiority, repeatedly carry out hostile or humiliating acts against another which, without amounting to degrading treatment, constitute serious harassment of the victim.

The same penalty shall also be imposed on a person who repeatedly carries out hostile or humiliating acts which, without amounting to degrading treatment, have as their object the prevention of the lawful enjoyment of a dwelling.

Where, in accordance with article 31 bis, a legal person is liable for the offences set out in the preceding paragraphs, it shall be punished with a fine of six months to two years. Having regard to the rules laid down in article 66 bis, judges and courts may also impose the penalties set out in letters b) to g) of paragraph 7 of article 33.

2. A person who habitually exercises physical or psychological violence against a person who is or has been his spouse, or against a person who is or has been bound to him by an analogous relationship of affection even without cohabitation, or against descendants, ascendants or siblings by nature, adoption or affinity, whether his own or those of the spouse or cohabitant, or against minors or persons with a disability in need of special protection who live with him or who are subject to the authority, guardianship, curatorship, fostering or de facto custody of the spouse or cohabitant, or against a person covered by any other relationship by which that person is integrated into the nucleus of his family life, as well as against persons who by reason of their particular vulnerability are subject to custody or care in public or private centres, shall be punished with imprisonment of six months to three years, deprivation of the right to possess and carry weapons for three to five years and, where appropriate, where the judge or court considers it appropriate in the interest of a minor or of a person with a disability in need of special protection, special disqualification from the exercise of parental authority, guardianship, curatorship, custody or fostering for one to five years, without prejudice to the penalties that may correspond to the offences in which the acts of physical or psychological violence have materialised.

The penalties shall be imposed in their upper half where any of the acts of violence are committed in the presence of minors, or using weapons, or take place in the common home or in the home of the victim, or are carried out in breach of one of the penalties contemplated in article 48 or of an interim or security measure or prohibition of the same nature.

In the cases referred to in this paragraph, a measure of supervised release may also be imposed.

3. In assessing the habituality referred to in the preceding paragraph, regard shall be had to the number of acts of violence proved and to their proximity in time, irrespective of whether that violence has been exercised against the same or different victims among those covered by this article, and of whether or not the violent acts have been the subject of earlier proceedings.

4. A person who causes minor insult or unjust humiliation, where the person offended is one of the persons referred to in paragraph 2 of article 173, shall be punished with permanent location of five to thirty days, always in a dwelling different from and distant from that of the victim, or community service of five to thirty days, or a fine of one to four months, the latter only in cases where the circumstances set out in paragraph 2 of article 84 are present.

The same penalties shall be imposed on those who address another person with expressions, conduct or propositions of a sexual nature that create for the victim an objectively humiliating, hostile or intimidating situation, without amounting to other more serious offences.

The offences defined in the two preceding paragraphs may be prosecuted only on the complaint of the injured person or of that person’s legal representative.

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.