SIR: National Media Report – Spain: The Importance of Appearances: How Suspects and Accused Persons are Presented in" the Courtroom, in Public and in the Media

The right of all persons to be presumed innocent is enshrined in Section 24.2 of the Spanish Constitution (1978), along with the rest of judicial guarantees related to a fair trial. Although presumption of innocence is commonly assumed to be a translation of the proverbial in dubio proreo principle (when in doubt, the suspect must be set free), legal scholars claim it is not a standard but a guiding principle for judges to avoid the social prejudice of guilt, that is, the psychological inertia that human beings have towards deeming any suspect guilty of the offense she/he is being accused of. This notwithstanding, the Spanish jurisprudence on presumption of innocence, built on sentences from the Supreme and Constitutional Courts, insists on the AmericanKinspired attempt to define a standard, a threshold of enough evidence that would allow judges to discard innocence and claim guilt. Such a standard, based on ideas like the ‘burden of proof’ or ‘conviction beyond reasonable doubt’, is either inapplicable (in criminal proceedings, the suspect may not have any countering evidence) or too subjective, as each judge may have a different threshold by which a fact is considered proven beyond any doubt