Criminal judicial error: Supreme Court eases compensation after the Tommouhi case, 18 years an innocent prisoner

Judgment 2668/2026 of the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Spanish Supreme Court opens a route that defence lawyers had been demanding for years: when a criminal judicial error follows unequivocally from the review judgment that overturned the conviction, the victim need not go through a separate declaratory procedure to claim compensation from the State.

The Tommouhi case

Ahmed Tommouhi spent almost 18 years deprived of liberty convicted of sexual offences he did not commit. After the review of his conviction, the Supreme Court now acknowledges compensation of 2.5 million euros and, above all, refines the doctrine on how that compensation is obtained.

Article 293 LOPJ, interpreted with common sense

Article 293 of the Organic Law of the Judiciary requires, for State patrimonial liability for judicial error, that the error be declared in the procedure established for that purpose. The strict reading of the provision had turned that filter into a trap: even where a review judgment had already stated that the convicted person did not commit the facts, the victim had to initiate a new declaratory procedure, with years of additional litigation.

The Chamber now holds that this formal requirement cannot be imposed where the error is already manifest from the review judgment itself. Procedural economy and effective judicial protection do not admit useless duplications: the system that committed the error cannot demand a second lawsuit to acknowledge what it has already acknowledged.

The role of the Ministry of Justice report

State compensation proceedings for judicial error require a prior report from the Ministry of Justice, which is mandatory but not binding. Until now, the formal reading of article 293 LOPJ had allowed the Administration to resist payment arguing the absence of a specific declaratory judgment, even in cases where the review judgment left no room for doubt. The new doctrine dismantles that argument where the error is already unequivocal.

The Chamber recalls that patrimonial liability is a constitutional guarantee linked to the right to effective judicial protection, and that its effectiveness cannot depend on forcing the victim to relitigate a fact the system itself has already established.

A line drawn for the most serious cases

The Court is careful to confine the doctrine: the shortcut applies only when the error is manifest from the review resolution itself. Doubtful cases, evidentiary disagreements or mere discrepancies in legal assessment remain subject to the ordinary declaratory channel. The filter survives; what disappears is its application to the errors that the system has already confessed.

Practical scope for defence lawyers

The doctrine has immediate effects on pending and future claims. Lawyers handling manifest judicial error cases - reviews resolved on the merits - gain a direct argument against formal inadmissions and against State demands for a new procedure.

The judgment does not abolish the declaratory procedure: it remains necessary where the error is not unequivocally established. But it draws the line clearly, and it does so in the most extreme case Spanish criminal justice has produced in decades.

The cost of error

The 2.5 million euros are what the system puts on 18 years of lost liberty. The figure, the highest in this type of compensation, also sets the reference for future cases and underlines the scale of the damage that a wrongful criminal conviction inflicts. Our editorial today analyses what this judgment means for the quality of technical defence: when the system gets it wrong, reparation cannot be another obstacle course.

Defence teams handling review cases will also find useful our guide on criminal defence standards and the daily coverage in news.

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