Abstract
The Court of cassation deals again with the so-called cultural-oriented offenses, a category on which
scholars and the case-law have been increasingly focussed in the last decade.In the specific case, the
claimed cultural offense consisted in son’s genitals groping by Albanian father. The mother of the
child was charged too with this offense. Indeed, she did not intervene to prevent her husband from
committing the abuse, despite being aware of it. The Supreme Court claims, with the current
judgement, that within the present-day society it is necessary to interpret criminal laws according
to the current historical period, which is marked by multiculturalism. Hence, it will be necessary to
state if there is a specific cultural conduct norm in the social context of origin of the defendant, which
imposes a behaviour to him/her deemed as an offense within the Italian legal system, and it is
necessary to state if this behaviour underpins the unlawful action. In the specific case, the result of
this assessment turns out to be negative, because no conduct norm in the Albanian culture imposes
or at least considers groping and fellatio against children as lawful. The claimed ignorantia legis of the
defendant with regard to the genitals groping is then not blameless, according to the Court. Hence,
the claimed ignorantia legis can not be deemed as a presumption of innocence, because the parents
of the child were well integrated into the Italian society, where they had been working from years.
Translated title of the contribution | [Autom. eng. transl.] Caresses or violence? The Cassation addresses the problem of allegedly culturally oriented sexual crimes |
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Original language | Italian |
Pages (from-to) | 1432-1438 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | DIRITTO PENALE E PROCESSO |
Publication status | Published - 2018 |
Keywords
- Criminal law
- cultural offense
- diritto penale
- reato culturalmente orientato