The judgment is not the end. Once a conviction becomes final, a different stage begins — enforcement — and it decides something very concrete: whether the person goes to prison at all, how long they actually serve, and under what conditions.
It is a technical stage with short deadlines, and many firms step away from it once the judgment is handed down. At Bataller Abogados it is exactly where we concentrate our work, alongside Spanish prison law.
Sentence enforcement covers everything that happens once a judgment becomes final: the calculation of the sentence, the alternatives to entering prison, the counting and aggregation of separate cases, criminal fines and their consequences, and alternative penalties such as community service.
It is governed mainly by the Código Penal (the Spanish Criminal Code) in articles 80 onwards, together with the Ley de Enjuiciamiento Criminal (the Spanish Criminal Procedure Act). As a general rule, the competent body is the sentencing court.
This is the main route to avoiding prison for sentences of up to two years, and up to five years in cases involving drug dependence. It takes preparation and documents, and it is best raised before the court decides. There is more detail on our page about suspensión de la pena (suspension of the custodial sentence).
Where a criminal fine cannot be paid, the law provides for a subsidiary personal liability that can end in loss of liberty. There are alternatives — payment by instalments, community service, permanent location orders — and they have to be applied for in time. See unpaid criminal fines.
Where there are several judgments, article 76 of the Código Penal sets maximum limits on the time to be served and article 988 of the Ley de Enjuiciamiento Criminal sets out the procedure for legal aggregation. A well-argued aggregation can substantially reduce the time actually served. More on aggregation of sentences.
For foreign nationals who have been convicted, article 89 of the Código Penal allows a prison sentence to be replaced by expulsion from Spanish territory. It is a decision with far-reaching consequences. We cover it on our page about expulsion in place of the sentence.
In sentence enforcement the deadlines are counted in days and the decisions follow on from one another: a poorly prepared application for suspension shapes whether someone goes to prison; a miscalculation carries through for years; an unpaid fine with no alternative applied for ends in loss of liberty.
That is why we urge people to seek advice before the judgment becomes final, or as soon as it does. There is far more scope then than there is when the order to report to prison arrives.
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