Assault on a doctor also affects collective security

Whoever assaults a medical practitioner does not only harm his physical integrity but also affects thecollective security. This is why the increase in penalties and the introduction of an independent criminal offence is justified in the case of even minor injuries caused to a doctor on duty. The Court of Cassation thus confirms the conviction of the appellant for the crime of wounding and threatening a white coat during his shift at the hospital.

The woman had attacked the medical director in the ward by 'grabbing her arm and pulling her hair hard and for a long time'. The result was an injury to her scalp and shoulder, with a prognosis of five days. Physical and verbal violence, carried out against the public official to force him to perform an act contrary to his official duties: visiting the defendant in derogation of the admitting shift and the urgency of the service. The defence challenged the verdict of the Court of Appeal that had brought the facts within the scope of Article 583-quater, affirming the autonomous nature of the offence, instead of the aggravating circumstance.

For the Supreme Court, the territorial judges' reading is correct and in line with the objective of the legislator, who introduced Article 583-quater. The regulation 'in its new formulation, delineates an autonomous incriminatory hypothesis for injuries to the detriment of health care professionals both in the hypothesis of minor injuries and in the hypothesis of serious or very serious injuries'. A 'typification by speciality' with respect to the broader one on voluntary personal injuries, aimed at repressing an offence 'that is not limited to seriously injuring the legal asset of physical integrity, but that affects collective safety'. An autonomous disvalue lies in thesubjective qualification of the victim.

The legislator, in fact, a little over two years after the entry into force of Law 113/2020 on 'Provisions on the safety of health and social-health professions in the exercise of their functions', intervened again with Decree 34/2023, the so-called Bills Decree to increase penalties in the event of attacks on health and social-health personnel.

To the aggravating circumstance introduced, on that occasion, for grievous and very grievous bodily harm committed against doctors and medical practitioners, Decree Law 34/2023 added, by reformulating the same provision, a toughening of the penalties for simple bodily harm.