News Supreme Court rulings September 2017

Religion does not justify carrying a knife: migrants must conform to our values

For the Supreme Court, the carrying of the Kirpan knife is not justified on the grounds of religious beliefs, as an Indian citizen would have claimed: this was decreed in ruling no. 24084 of May 15, 2017.

The case involved a man who, without justifiable cause, took an 18.5-centimeter-long knife, tied to his belt and deemed fit for offense, out of his home. Faced with local police officers intent on seizing it from him, however, he had refused to hand it over because, according to him, this behavior conforms to the precepts of his religion, as he is a Sikh.

The Court had occasion to observe that, in a multi-ethnic society, certainly integration between different peoples does not require the abandonment of one’s religion, but this fact is limited by respect for the human rights and legal civilization of the host country. It is essential for the immigrant to conform his or her values to those of the Western world where he or she has freely chosen to fit in, verifying in advance the compatibility of his or her behavior with the principles governing it.

For the bite of a dog entrusted to a third party, the owner is liable for culpable injury

The owner of a dog is criminally responsible and liable for culpable injury if the animal, after being entrusted to another person, bites a third party.

So stated the Supreme Court in ruling no. 30548/2016, in which he settled the case of a dog that, after being in the care of the actual owner’s father, bit a child.

For the Supreme Collegium, there is a residual liability of the owner, if the owner is able to exercise control or the animal is entrusted to a person who is unable to exercise effective custody.

No family abuse for isolated quarrels:

the crime under Article 572 of the Criminal Code exists in case of systematic and habitual harassment of one’s family members

The crime of family abuse should be excluded where, even following a complaint by the offended person, no suitable evidence of wrongdoing emerges, particularly the habituality and systematic nature of the harassing behavior that characterizes the criminal case. The violent attitudes that characterized the quarrels that occurred between the spouses may possibly integrate other offenses, which can also be prosecuted on complaint.

This was established by the Supreme Court in ruling no. 40936 of 2017, in which it was clarified that the crime of mistreatment in the family is necessarily habitual, and is characterized by a series of acts, mostly commissive, but also omissive, which, considered in isolation, could also be non-punishable or non-prosecutable (insults, beatings or mild threats, prosecutable only on complaint).