Claves para la efectividad del ejercicio de la acción civil ex delicto. Especial referencia a contextos de discapacidad (1)

Resumen

Royal Decree 6/2023, of 19 December «by which urgent measures are approved for the execution of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan with regard to, inter alia, the public service of Justice» tackles a reform of the criminal process itself, but whose origin lies in civil law and procedure. The apparently minor reform is in fact highly significant in that it constitutes the legislator realisation of the need to shape the disability regime in the Spanish legal system. The change affects article 109 of the Law on Criminal Procedure (LECrim) and the offer of legal actions, and has full impact on the right to exercise criminal and civil action ex delicto corresponding both to the person who meets the double condition of being offended and harmed, as well as to the person who suffers the harm caused by the crime and take part in the proceeding as a victim, above all in cases in which the person is in a position of vulnerability due to disability. This breakthrough is joined by advances in other areas that make it possible to overcome the insufficiency of the system to which, under the current model, the exercise of civil actions in criminal proceedings is subject and to sooner or later correct important dysfunctions in the execution phase of guilty verdicts when it comes to the payment of monetary compensation in terms of civil liability. The article will analyse what are, or may become, the keys that determine the effectiveness of the exercise of the right to compensation of those offended or harmed by the crime, and not just economically.