As alterações ao código penal espanhol na sequência do caso "La Manada": exemplo a seguir pelo ordenamento jurídico português?

With this brief study we intend to analyse some of the changes introduced to the Spanish Criminal Code by Organic Laws no. 10/2022, of September 6 and no. 4/2023, of April 27, concerning the crime of sexual assault and the former crime of sexual abuse. We will try to contextualize these changes in the Spanish social, political, and legal contexts, marked by the controversy raised by the "La Manada" case. Finally, we will seek to relate the conclusions resulting from this analysis, which will focus only on adult victims, with suggestions regarding the Portuguese law on crimes against sexual freedom. We will not conduct a comparative study, but we will adopt a "comparative perspective". This will also be a jurisprudential and doctrinal study. We will pay special attention to the definition of consent now expressly provided for in Spanish law, which adopts the "solo si es si" model, and we will seek to understand whether the assimilation of sexual abuse and aggressions, in punitive terms, was a pertinent solution to the problem of revictimization. We will end by considering, in the light of what has been said, whether the Spanish law on sexual crimes has evolved favourably since 2022 in terms of the protection of victims of this type of gender- based violence. It seems to us that the idea that "there is sexual assault when there is no consent" is here to stay. Also, to conclude, we will try to discern, in view of the imposition of the Istanbul Convention on States to criminalize non-consensual sexual acts (Article 36), whether Portuguese law – which currently places the emphasis on the practice of sexual acts "against the discernible will of the victim" – should, at least partially, follow the Spanish example.