Spanish immigration focus on Spanish law:
1) Characteristics of Public Law
Like administrative law, criminal law is a body of law that concerns public interests, especially the interests of the state. In contrast to private law, it does not regulate horizontal relationships but rather vertical ones, meaning that individuals are in a legal position subject to state power. As long as an entity's actions violate criminal statutes and constitute a crime, they shall be subject to criminal prosecution by judicial authorities.
2) Closely Related to Criminal Acts
As the name implies, the core of criminal law is to define what constitutes a criminal act and the consequences of violating it. It explicitly specifies types of crimes and their corresponding penalties in specific provisions. If an actor's behavior does not fall within its defined scope, they are not subject to any punishment. Modern criminal law provisions are clear and rigorous, leaving almost no room for discretionary power for administrative agencies, unlike in ancient times when officials had significant freedom to determine criminal liability. Compared to ancient criminal law, it is much more specific, sound, and systematic.
3) Mandatory Nature
Although private law also has mandatory characteristics—for example, when we sign a sales contract, it creates binding and mandatory force between the parties—this mandatory nature (except in special circumstances) can be freely disposed of by both parties, as they can settle out of court once they agree. However, the mandatory nature of criminal law is higher. Even if the victim of a person who has violated criminal law agrees to an out-of-court settlement or a private resolution, because public law has been violated and public order or state interests have been harmed, judicial departments must still issue a ruling based on the specific act and ensure the offender receives due punishment. Therefore, whether an act violating criminal law should be subject to criminal sanctions or bear relevant criminal liability is not determined by the parties involved, but by judicial authorities according to specific legal provisions: if the criminal law is violated, the consequences will follow, with the exception of a small number of special cases.
4) Abolition of Life Imprisonment and the Death Penalty
According to Article 15 of the Spanish Constitution, no one shall be subjected to inhuman treatment or torture under any circumstances. Furthermore, the death penalty is abolished, except as otherwise provided by military criminal law in times of war. Anyone, even if considered a potential offender, has the right to the presumption of innocence (Presunción de inocencia) and cannot be subjected to torture or inhuman treatment of any kind. This fundamental principle of Spanish criminal law is based on the function of criminal penalties, as the ultimate goal of criminal punishment is the re-education and social reintegration of offenders, rather than punishment for the sake of punishment. Since the death penalty cannot achieve the goal of social reintegration, Spanish criminal law holds that even if a person's criminal act is heinous, inhuman, or what we commonly call "intolerable to heaven and man," they should not be sentenced to death.
5) Regulated by Organic Law
According to Article 81 of the Constitution, criminal law is a law involving the fundamental rights of individuals, and its provisions must be regulated through an Organic Law (Ley Orgánica). As previously mentioned, one of the differences between organic and non-organic laws is that the former requires an absolute majority of votes from members of the Congress of Deputies to pass. Therefore, not all forms of law can determine whether an act is subject to criminal punishment; only through an Organic Law can it be determined which acts violate criminal law. In this way, everyone's fundamental rights have more protection before criminal law.
6) Personal Nature of the Law
Like the criminal law of most countries in the world, criminal sanctions are personal in nature. They are directed at the natural person who has violated the criminal law and will not implicate their relatives, friends, or the company they work for, nor will one person's guilt be inherited or continued by the criminal's next generation. This is completely opposite to private law, where personal property, debts, rights, and civil liabilities in private law can generally be transferred or inherited. Criminal liability, however, cannot; it is non-transferable, and one person's fault cannot be compensated for by another.
