Feminine noun. From the Latin querella, complaint, and derived from the Latin verb queri, to complain. I guess the English term query has the same root, as queri in Latin can also mean “to question.”
The Spanish feminine noun denuncia can also be translated into English as “complaint,” “report,” or “claim,” but in Legal Spanish, querella and denuncia are two very different concepts. Both express the idea of a statement or account that someone has committed a crime. This statement, in both cases, can be made to either a judge or the police. However, in the case of a querella, the person who makes the statement, called el/la querellante, is the victim of the crime and may or may not be involved in the prosecution. Here, we can identify two different situations:
- In delitos de acción privada
The querellante initiates the proceedings and is personally involved in them. What is a delito de acción privada? It is a type of crime that, because it is not considered serious enough to affect the public order of society, cannot be prosecuted ex officio by public authorities (such as the police, judges, or the Public Ministry). Instead, the active intervention of the victim is required as the promoter of the judicial action and as a participant in the judicial process; e.g., defamation (calumnias). - In delitos semipúblicos
A querella is an indispensable condition to initiate the proceedings. Once the querella is filed, the victim’s intervention in the proceedings is no longer necessary, and the process becomes independent of the victim. Although the querellante is not obligated to actively pursue the prosecution, they are not entitled to withdraw the querella; e.g., breach of confidence (divulgación de secretos).
The verb for querella is querellar, and the verb for denuncia is denunciar. The person who files a denuncia is called el/la denunciante. dc
