Italian Supreme Court of Cassation, Criminal Section VI, No. 3398/1999, 20 October 1999

Recourse against conviction for the crime of domestic violence, victims were the wife and minor children of the defendant. Cultural factors that influenced the commission of the crime and exemption of the consent of entitled person.

Art. 2 Italian Constitution
Art. 3 Italian Constitution
Art. 50 Italian criminal code
Art. 572 Italian criminal code

1. The person responsible for domestic violence cannot invoke in his/her own favour the exemption provided for in article 50 of the Italian criminal code (consent of the entitled person), not even by alleging the existence, in his/her own country of origin and in the culture of his/her own and of the family members, of a conception of cohabitation and of the powers of the "head of the family" different from the Italian one, such that the family members can validly dispose of the hierarchy and of the habits of life within their nucleus, without external interventions being able to sanction behaviours perceived as legitimate.

2. The constitutional principles laid down in article 2 (relating to the guarantee of inviolable human rights), article 3 (relating to equal social dignity, equality without distinction of sex and the Republic’s task of removing obstacles which, by limiting freedom and equality in practice, prevent the full development of the human personality), articles 29 and 30 (concerning the rights of the family and duties towards children) constitute an insurmountable barrier against the introduction, in law and in fact, into civil society, of customs, practices, traditions that contrast with the results obtained over the centuries to achieve the affirmation of the inviolable rights of the person.

(In the case in question, the defendant - of Albanian origin - had mistreated his cohabiting family members, claiming that they had consented, given the different conception of cohabitation and of the powers of the “head of the family” in their culture.)