The crime of outrage. Jurisprudential analysis of its elements

Abstract

The Criminal Code contains, in its article 543, the so-called «crime of outrage», which aim is to suppress anti-Spanish sign behaviors. Specifically, the provision states that «Las ofensas o ultrajes de palabra, por escrito o de hecho a España, a sus comunidades autónomas o a sus símbolos o emblemas, efectuados con publicidad, se castigarán con la pena de multa de siete a doce meses».

In this sense, the conduct described in the precept is to do «insult or outrage», actions that have been considered by doctrine and jurisprudence as equivalent to «serious injury». As for the methods of commission, the «insult or outrage» can be «speech, written or done». In the first two cases, the offense seems less offensive because no force is used, in the case of the offense «in fact» seems more damaging in that it involves making a behavior that, in most of cases, affects the Spanish flag.

The offenses must be directed against «España, sus Comunidades Autónomas, o sus símbolos o emblemas». The determination of what is meant by the above concepts has been made by the case law which said that they are passive subjects of crime «la nación española, el sentimiento de su unidad, el Estado, su forma política, así como sus símbolos y emblemas, siendo dichos símbolos o emblemas, principalmente, la bandera nacional o bandera de España […], el himno nacional y el escudo constitucional».

The offenses must be made with advertising, which means they must be made in the presence of others, because «si tal elemento no concurre, la ofensa no trasciende al ámbito privado y resulta absolutamente inocua».

Reference should be made, finally, to the possible unconstitutionality of the precept, that criminalizes behaviors that, in most of cases, will not be but manifestations of freedom of expression and political and ideological pluralism.