News Supreme Court rulings October 2014

Supreme Court: a kidney colic does not justify exceeding the speed limit to go to the hospital

In ruling no. 20121 of 2014, the Supreme Court specified that a speeding ticket given to a motorist who was on his way to the hospital for kidney colic is valid.
According to the Justices of Legitimacy, in the aforementioned case, the circumstance that the said motorist was proceeding at a speed twice the permitted limit, all while in the vicinity of a train station, could not fail to be noted. Moreover, the court points out, the plaintiff’s state of illness did not pose such a serious danger and such a danger as to justify such a marked exceeding of the speed limit in an area also frequented by children. In addition to this, the driver, while claiming that he had behaved in this way because of the absolute necessity to get to the hospital in order to save himself or others from a current and immediate danger, did not provide any convincing evidence in this regard.

Wishing death on someone is morally reprehensible, but criminally irrelevant.
The Supreme Court (Judgment No. 41190 filed Oct. 3, 2014) ruled that although wishing death on another person is a manifestation of “rancor, perhaps hatred,” the aforementioned wish is not criminally relevant and does not constitute the crime of insult or the crime of threat.
The Justices of the Court, in fact, pointed out that both the psychological element of the crime and the material element are lacking in such circumstances since wishing the death of others does not necessarily mean that one intends to offend or threaten the person addressed; certainly there was a manifestation of lack of affection toward the person to whom the “wish” was addressed, but, at least in the specific concrete case, in the opinion of the Supreme Court, the subject’s lack of intention to carry out acts that would result in the victim’s death appeared evident: only the hope of the subject who made the “wish” emerged that death might occur by chance and/or by a third party.

Forbidden to tell a woman “you are a school ship”

The Supreme Court has made it clear that comparing women to “school ships,” with reference to the extent of their past love relationships, constitutes offensive as well as injurious behavior even in view of the common feeling of most people and, therefore, deserves to be fined.
This is what the Supreme Court ruled in Judgment 37506/2014 where an ex-husband who often, when he saw his separated wife in the early days of the separation, apostrophized her by saying “you are a training ship, teaching the uninitiated the practical manual of love,” is ordered to pay a fine.