Italy, a serial violator

The murder of women and minors in family contexts at the hands of companions / fathers is a phenomenon so widespread and tolerated in Italy as to make our State a (serial) violator of the right to life, the most fundamental of fundamental human rights. This statement is not the result of an investigation by human rights activists, but is contained in the now recurrent judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg condemning Italy for violating Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Under international law, the state is obliged to protect all the population under its jurisdiction from violations of fundamental rights, whoever commits them. The State therefore has a duty to guarantee protection to people who report domestic violence and abuse to prevent their lives from being endangered. As was reiterated in the recent Landi case, Italy was condemned for the omission by national authorities of the positive obligation deriving from Article 2 of the Convention for failing to take the necessary protection and assistance measures, following allegations of violence by the woman against her partner.

Unfortunately, as often happens in Italy, the reports of violence and mistreatment in the family are underestimated by the authorities and in this case the tragic epilogue was the death of the son just one year old at the hands of his father. In particular, it was the prosecutors who remained passive in the face of the ill-treatment inflicted on the woman by failing to carry out, after multiple complaints, an effective investigation which in fact left the man free to continue to threaten, harass and attack the woman to the point of killing her son.

The Court found that despite previous convictions, the State continues to consider crimes committed in the family a category of crimes not worthy of the same persecution as other crimes; In addition, the underestimation of the risk, this time, is attributable to the judiciary and not only to the police. This is all the more serious if we consider that magistrates should have all the cultural and technical tools to carry out an effective risk assessment and intervene with the preventive instruments present in our legal system. And in fact, for now the Court has not decided to attribute to our country also the "aggravating factor" of discrimination based on gender, since the legislative instruments to guarantee protection exist, but are not applied.

The seriousness of the conduct of an Italian State incapable of meeting its obligation to protect women who are victims of abuse in the family is such that the Court, for the first time in the Landi case, allows an exception to the principle of exhaustion of domestic remedies by allowing victims of family violence to direct action before the Court. The hope is that this will reduce cases in which violence results in murder.

Unfortunately, the underestimation of the criminal phenomenon and the serious cultural inadequacy of Italian institutions is also demonstrated by the lack of interest shown in the face of international sentences. Italy, in fact, since 2017 has been under enhanced surveillance, with the launch of the enforcement procedure before the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, following the Talpis case. This is another case in which Italy had been condemned for the inadequacy of the authorities in preventing a man from killing his son, who had intervened to defend his oft-abused mother. In cases of enhanced surveillance, the State is kept under close surveillance to ensure that violations such as those ascertained do not recur. Italy, which should have provided information on the implementation of the conviction by 31 May 2021, does not appear to have fulfilled this obligation.

The international alarm should be taken more seriously and if the draft directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on combating violence against women and domestic violence, presented on 8 March 2022, is approved, Italy will have to respond not only to the Council of Europe but also to the European Union. But is it not enough to read the daily chronicles of violence and deaths in the family for a cultural and legal change worthy of the rule of law to be triggered? It would be nice if the sovereignism so widespread in our country experienced a burst of pride and triggered a change before another, predictable, international condemnation.