In Spain, breaching a restraining/protection order and failing to complete community service can be two separate legal problems, and they can potentially compound the person’s situation.
1. Breaching a restraining order
Spain’s Penal Code treats breach of certain court-ordered prohibitions as quebrantamiento de condena under Article 468.
Where the breached prohibition is a prohibition on approaching or communicating with the victim under Article 48, imposed in a criminal case involving a person covered by Article 173.2, Article 468(2) provides a penalty of 6 months to 1 year in prison. BOE
A prohibition on approach means the person must not approach the protected person, their home, workplace or other places they regularly attend. A communication prohibition also covers written, verbal and visual contact, including contact through electronic or telematic means. BOE
So a breach is not merely a technical breach of a civil arrangement. It can constitute a new criminal offence.
2. Not completing community service
Article 49 is equally important.
Community service is carried out under the control of the Juez de Vigilancia Penitenciaria. The penitentiary social-services authorities must report specified serious non-compliance, including certain voluntary absences, persistently inadequate performance, repeated refusal to follow instructions, or conduct causing the placement to be terminated. BOE
The judge can then:
- allow the person to continue at the same centre;
- transfer them to another centre to complete the sentence; or
- determine that the community-service sentence has been breached.
If the judge determines there has been non-compliance, Article 49 expressly provides for proceedings under Article 468. BOE
There is an important qualification: a genuinely justified absence is not automatically treated as abandonment. However, the missed work is not counted towards completion; only the days actually worked count. BOE
3. What happens when both occur?
The situation can therefore look like this:
| Event | Possible legal significance |
|---|---|
| Original conviction | Criminal conviction and sentence |
| Community service ordered | Criminal sentence being executed |
| Community service deliberately not completed | Possible breach of sentence; Article 49 → Article 468 procedure |
| Restraining/protection order breached | Potential new offence under Article 468 |
| Multiple breaches | Potentially multiple criminal proceedings, depending on the precise facts |
| Medical absence | May be accepted if genuinely justified, but it does not automatically cancel the outstanding work |
The exact sentence and orders matter. For example, there is a major difference between someone missing community service because they were genuinely medically incapable of attending and someone repeatedly obtaining certificates while otherwise refusing to comply.
4. One particularly significant point
If the original conviction involved domestic violence and the person subsequently breached the protection order, that later breach is not simply evidence that the original offence was more serious. It can itself constitute a new criminal offence.
Likewise, failure to complete the community-service sentence does not simply erase the original sentence. Article 49 provides a specific mechanism for reporting and dealing with the non-compliance. BOE
So, in a case involving:
domestic abuse conviction → community-service sentence → protection/restraining order → alleged breach of the order → failure to complete community service
there can potentially be an original conviction plus subsequent proceedings for breach of the order and proceedings concerning failure to execute the community-service sentence.
