Italian appeals court: Adulterers may lie

[Surlethe]

From BBC.

Italy's highest appeal court has ruled that married Italian women who commit adultery are entitled to lie about it to protect their honour.

The court gave its landmark ruling after hearing the case of a 48-year-old woman, convicted of giving false testimony to police by denying she had lent her mobile phone to her lover.

The appeal court did not agree that she had broken the law.

It said bending the truth was justified to conceal extra-marital relationships.

In a predominantly Catholic country you might expect the courts to take a dim view of lying and adultery.

But not in this case.

The woman who brought the appeal was from Porto Ercole on the Tuscany coast, and named only as Carla.

She had lent her telephone to her secret lover, Giovanni, who then used it to call Carla's estranged husband, Vincenzo, and insult him.

Giovanni, the lover, was convicted of abusive behaviour in a local court, and Carla convicted as an accessory.

Controversial judgements

But the Court of Cassation found that having a lover was a circumstance that damaged the honour of the person among family and friends.

Lying about it, therefore, was permitted, even in a judicial investigation.

It is not yet clear whether the ruling might also apply to men who have secret mistresses.

The Court of Cassation, which is largely staffed by elderly male appeal judges, has in the past issued a number of controversial judgements.

It once gave a ruling, later rescinded after protests from women's groups, that a woman could not be raped by definition if she was wearing tight jeans, since the jeans could only be removed with her consent.

Now, I'm not about to advocate the government banning all lying, but this woman lied to police when they were investigating harassment. That seems to be out of line; the police need all the information to do their jobs, and if you happen to be sleeping around on your spouse, too bad.

[Terralthra]

Perjury is perfectly fine if concealing an affair?

I hear Bill Clinton is planning to retire to Milan.

[Simplicius]

Giovanni, the lover, was convicted of abusive behaviour in a local court, and Carla convicted as an accessory.

That's possibly two convictions this woman avoided, then; the article is a bit vague but "giving false testimony" and "accessory to abusive behavior" are two different things, are they not?

Without setting foot on a slippery slope, I completely fail to see the merits of weakening the power of a justice system to compel honest testimony in the name of some nebulous 'honor.' What century are we in, again?

[Elfdart]

That's amore!

[Fleet Admiral JD]

Perjury is perfectly fine if concealing an affair?

I hear Bill Clinton is planning to retire to Milan.

Wow, how incredibly witty of you, dipshit.

I could possibly, maybe understand this if the revelation of an affair would submit the woman to imminant threat of life (I.E., if she was living in a Muslim area where Sharia law was distributed by vigilante,) but even then the police could help her.

Is there any chance this can get further appealed and this ruling overturned?

[Melchior]

Is there any chance this can get further appealed and this ruling overturned?

No, but it hasn't any value as a precedent.

[Fleet Admiral JD]

No, but it hasn't any value as a precedent.

Why not? The article seems to imply that it does set a legal precedent and inquires as to whether it applies to men or not.

[Melchior]

No, but it hasn't any value as a precedent.

Why not? The article seems to imply that it does set a legal precedent and inquires as to whether it applies to men or not.

Italy has a legal system derived from the Roman one, not common law. Single rulings do not have much influence.

[Netko]

Essentially, while precedent is not worthless in civil law countries, the main concern about is the maintenance of coherence in outcomes (the court doesn't want to be contradictory), but it cannot be used as a source of law - in some jurisdictions past decisions cannot even be cited in briefs! Commonly they can be, but only as a sort of reminder to the court that a certain ruling in a particular case could be contradictory to their prior practice, and cannot be used as part of a legal argument. So in this instance, that particular court would probably issue an consistent ruling should a similar case make its way before it (and even that probably only for the time being, while the same judges are appointed - any new appointments would rank consistency with a predecessors decisions lower then with their own), but that isn't binding neither on lower nor higher courts then it.

Basically, its a codification vs tradition distinction. Civil law believes that, for legal matters, things have to be codified, else they simply cannot be acted upon (witness, for example, a lack of the kind of broad, conceptual, lawsuits with no firm basis in law that can occur in the US specifically, but in common law countries generally) while common law is based on past precedent and codification is treated as narrowly as possible.