Asupra conłinutului material al infracłiunii de corupere de minori sau incapabili în dreptul spaniol
On the material content of debauchery of youth or incompetent adults offence in Spanish law

Summary/Abstract: The study discusses the criminal law provisions in what concerns youth debauchery in the Spanish penal law. The legal text is analyzed from a dual perspective, through a permanent reference to the Spanish jurisprudence on the topic, as well as to the main opinion expressed in the literature. Investigating the legal regulation of this infraction, the author carries out a succinct and eloquent synthesis of former Spanish criminal code settlements of the subject. At present, after the amendment of the penal code through Law no.11 of April 30th 1999, art.189 (3) expressly impleads the debauchery of youth. The text sanctions the act of a person that causes a minor or an incompetent person to take part in a behavior of sexual nature, behavior that harms the evolution or development of his personality. Currently, the field of application for this crime is restricted in comparison with past pieces of legislation. The reasons of this restriction are due to the new configuration of sexual offences, but also to the fact that the punishment for debauchery has become one of the lowest in this category. Consequently, this specific infraction has been transformed into a subsidiary one, thus restricting the field of application for sexual offences concerning victims that are minors or incompetent persons. In what regards art.189, the author pleads for a precise demarcation of the social value upheld. He asserts that this value is the one of sexual personality, which is not identical, but complementary, to sexual freedom, as acts of debauchery can or cannot be associated with an infringement on this freedom. In what follows, on the basis of a detailed itemization of the decisions of the Supreme Court, the study examines the integrant elements of the offence- the active and passive subject, the prerequisites of the criminal conduct, the resulting outcome and the subjective side of the offence. The author sustains that the infraction is one of result, the typical outcome being manifested in a corrupted or sexually-deviated personality, owing to the determinant cause of the minor or incompetent person’ s involvement in this kind of sexual behavior. The result will thus consist of sexual alterations of the human personality, as shown by the example of determining a minor to perform sexual practices with animals, thus causing an inclination to zoophilia. The author concludes that, despite the 1999 legislator’s efforts to define debauchery, there appears to be no clear statement of the concrete situations where this notion applies, a very open wording being preferred instead, which can result in obvious judicial insecurity. This situation is due to the lack of a clear image of the conduit that is characteristic to this crime, as its specific consequences on the sexual personality of the victim are not easy to detect. A constant reference to the jurisprudence and to dominant sexual conceptions is therefore needed, in order to establish when t

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