Restorative Justice and Victim-Offender Mediation in Spain: When It Applies and What It Changes

Restorative justice has been part of the vocabulary of Spanish criminal proceedings for years, yet it is rarely explained in practical terms: what can be requested, before whom, and what real effect it has on the sentence. It is not an alternative to the proceedings, nor a way of making the case disappear. It is a parallel, voluntary and confidential procedure in which the injured party and the person under investigation or already convicted attempt to reach a reparation agreement. Its reflection in the Criminal Code is concrete and measurable.

You are accused of an offence and mediation is offered: what it actually is

Victim-offender mediation is the most widespread form of restorative justice: an impartial third party conducts a dialogue between the injured party and the person who caused the harm, with a view to an agreement on material, moral or symbolic reparation. It does not replace the investigation, it does not in itself suspend any time limits, and it does not bind the court, which retains its full power to judge the case.

The legal basis is Article 15 of Law 4/2015, the Statute of the Victim of Crime (BOE-A-2015-4606, published on 28 April 2015), which grants victims access to restorative justice services in order to obtain adequate material and moral reparation for the harm caused by the offence. The statute deliberately places the focus on the victim: mediation does not exist as a benefit for the accused, even though it produces favourable effects for them.

The five requirements the law demands

Article 15.1 of Law 4/2015 makes access conditional on five cumulative requirements, and each one translates into a practical caution:

• Acknowledgement of the essential facts. The offender must have acknowledged the essential facts from which their liability derives. This is not a formal confession before the court, but neither is it compatible with denying the factual substrate.
• Informed consent of the victim, given after receiving exhaustive and impartial information on the content of the procedure, its possible outcomes and the mechanisms available to enforce compliance.
• Consent of the offender, equally voluntary.
• Absence of risk: the procedure must not entail a risk to the victim's safety, nor may there be a danger that its conduct will cause further material or moral harm.
• That it is not prohibited by law for the offence committed. This is the clause that refers to statutory exclusions, and it is not theoretical: there are areas where mediation is expressly barred.

Article 15.2 adds two crucial guarantees: the discussions are confidential and may not be disclosed without the consent of both parties, and mediators are bound by professional secrecy. Article 15.3 allows either party to withdraw consent at any time.

Where it fits in the timeline of the case

There is no single procedural step. In practice, referral occurs at three different moments, each with its own logic:

• During the investigation, usually on referral by the investigating court or at the parties' proposal. This is the scenario with most scope: it allows the agreement to be documented before the prosecution pleadings and reflected in the charges.
• Before trial, where the agreement forms the basis of a guilty plea. Article 801 LECrim provides for a plea judgment before the duty court with the requested sentence reduced by one third in the cases it lists, and its paragraph 3 accepts the defendant's undertaking to pay civil liability within the period set by the court.
• At the enforcement stage, where the aim is to support a suspension already granted or to prepare an application for pardon or for progression to a more open prison regime. Here the agreement does not change the sentence, but it does change the material on which those decisions are taken.

Real effects on the sentence

This is where precision matters, because a great deal of inflated information circulates. Mediation is not a ground for extinguishing criminal liability, nor a general pardon. Its effects are these:

• Mitigating circumstance of reparation, Article 21.5 CP. Liability is mitigated where the offender has repaired the harm caused to the victim, or reduced its effects, at any time in the proceedings and before the trial hearing is held. The time limit is the key point: after trial it no longer operates.
• Individualisation of the sentence. The agreement provides objective evidence of conduct after the offence, which Article 80.1 CP expressly requires the court to weigh when deciding on suspension, referring in particular to the offender's efforts to repair the harm caused.
• Pardon by the injured party, Article 130.1.5 CP. This does extinguish criminal liability, but only for minor offences prosecutable at the instance of the injured party or where the law so provides, and it must be granted expressly before judgment is delivered. Outside that perimeter, a pardon by the victim extinguishes nothing.
• Civil liability. The agreement usually settles compensation, which avoids a long enforcement stage. You can read more in our article on civil liability arising from crime.

The agreement as a condition of suspension (Article 84.1.1 CP)

The most direct link between mediation and sentence is Article 84.1 CP: the court may make suspension of the sentence conditional on certain obligations or measures, and the first on the list is, literally, compliance with the agreement reached by the parties through mediation. The other two are payment of a fine and community service.

The practical consequence cuts both ways. A well documented mediation agreement gives the court a concrete, verifiable condition on which to base suspension. But breaching it has a cost: it becomes a condition of the suspension, with the revocation regime that attaches to it. Before signing, check that what is agreed can actually be performed within the period set. You can read the wider framework on our page on suspended sentences.

Article 84.2 CP adds a specific caution where the offence was committed against a woman by a current or former spouse or partner, or against descendants, ascendants and other family members: in those cases the fine under Article 84.1.2 may only be imposed where it is established that there are no economic relations between them arising from marriage, cohabitation, parentage or shared children.

Juveniles: conciliation and reparation under Article 19 of Organic Law 5/2000

In the juvenile jurisdiction the restorative route is far more developed and produces an effect that does not exist for adults: discontinuance. Article 19 of Organic Law 5/2000 (BOE-A-2000-641) allows the Public Prosecutor to discontinue the file, having regard to the gravity and circumstances of the facts and of the minor, and in particular to the absence of serious violence or intimidation, where the minor has been reconciled with the victim, has undertaken to repair the harm, or has undertaken to complete the educational activity proposed by the technical team. Discontinuance is only available where the alleged act is a less serious offence or a minor offence, the provision still using the pre-2015 terminology.

Paragraph 2 defines the concepts precisely: there is conciliation where the minor acknowledges the harm caused and apologises to the victim and the victim accepts the apology; there is reparation where the minor undertakes to carry out specified actions for the benefit of the victim or the community and actually performs them. Mediation is carried out by the technical team (paragraph 3), and once conciliation has taken place or the undertakings have been performed, the Prosecutor applies for the case to be discontinued and closed (paragraph 4). If the minor fails to comply, the file proceeds (paragraph 5).

There is a relevant exception: where the facts concern the offences in Chapters I and II of Title VIII of the Criminal Code or are related to gender violence, there is no conciliation effect unless the victim expressly requests it and the minor has additionally completed the ancillary measure of sexual education and education for equality.

Where it is barred: gender violence cases

The requirement in Article 15.1.e) of Law 4/2015 refers to statutory prohibitions, and the most important one concerns gender violence. For twenty years the rule lived in Article 87 ter of the Organic Law on the Judiciary, introduced by Article 44 of Organic Law 1/2004, whose paragraph 5 stated without qualification that mediation is barred in all such cases.

That Article 87 ter was repealed by Organic Law 1/2025, which reorganised the courts into Courts of First Instance and Investigation sitting as single judicial bodies. The prohibition did not disappear: it moved, in updated wording, to Article 89.9 of the Organic Law on the Judiciary, which provides that in all matters within the competence of the Sections on Violence against Women the use of alternative dispute resolution methods is barred. Citing Article 87 ter today as if it were in force is a serious error in any pleading.

Beyond that, the filter is not a closed list of offences but an analysis of the requirements of Article 15: where there is an imbalance, a risk to the victim's safety or a danger of secondary victimisation, the procedure should not be opened. The information and protection rights that frame that decision are set out in our article on the Statute of the Victim.

Points to check before accepting

Taking part in a restorative procedure is a decision of procedural strategy, not an administrative formality. These points deserve review first:

• The acknowledgement of facts. Article 15 requires the essential facts to be admitted. Where the defence is that the conduct is not an offence, or that authorship is in dispute, mediation may be incompatible with the defence line.
• Confidentiality and its limits. The discussions are confidential and mediators are bound by professional secrecy, but the agreement document itself is added to the case file: it must be drafted in the knowledge that the court will read it.
• The calendar. The mitigating circumstance in Article 21.5 CP requires reparation before the trial hearing. A late agreement loses that effect.
• Real capacity to pay. Undertaking reparation that cannot be met turns an advantage into a breach, with direct impact where the agreement has been incorporated as a condition under Article 84.1.1 CP.
• The civil scope. It is worth specifying whether the agreement settles civil liability in full or only in part, and what happens with the legal costs of the proceedings.

If you are considering a mediation proposal, or want to know whether your case admits a restorative outcome, it is worth analysing how it fits before committing to anything. You can contact us at +34 91 078 65 74.