Complaint and Orders of Investigating Court No. 3 of Alicante

The order, in its own words

Noted; the foregoing complaint having been filed directed to Preliminary Proceedings 2231/16 and given that it bears no relation to the facts to which that procedure refers […] return it to the complainant in case it suits his right to file a new complaint for allocation.
— Order of Investigating Court No. 3 of Alicante (Judge Belén Gutiérrez González)

What the order resolves — and what it does not

• It resolves to return the complaint of prevarication against the Head of Collection of the Treasury's scope.
• It does not refer it ex officio to the court competent by allocation: it tells the complainant to start again.
• No assessment of the content is on record: neither admission, nor reasoned filing — a return.

The framework of the judicial duty

Article 262 of the Criminal Procedure Act imposes on those who by reason of their office have knowledge of a public crime the obligation to report it, and the procedural system articulates the referral between bodies precisely so that the notitia criminis does not depend on the citizen's perseverance. A complaint against a public official returned — not referred — leaves the prosecution of the possible crime in the hands of its victim.

The material effect

While the complaint went back to the starting point, the denounced proceedings continued to be enforced (A.41). The complainant — with no legal aid on this front (A.45) — had to redo the complete procedural path. The return, formally impeccable, produced the material effect of inaction.

How to verify it

Read the order and look in it for two things: an assessment of the merits and an ex officio referral. The absence of both, with the entry stamp beside it, is the document.