No double warning acquitted who does not send his child to school
Regulatory continuity ruled out after the Caivano Decree
2' min read
2' min read
With the Caivano decree, in force since 2023, two warnings are needed before punishing those who do not send their children to school: one from the school administration and one from the mayor. In the absence of both or even only one of the two, the conduct has no criminal relevance and, therefore, the parent guilty of failing to supervise repeated absences, even in the phase before the reform, must be acquitted, in the absence of regulatory continuity between the old and new criminal cases.
L’annullamento
This has now been affirmed by the Court of Cassation with sentence 30777 of the Third Criminal Section filed on 15 September. The ruling annulled, upholding the defence's appeal, the sentence issued by the justice of the peace against a couple for facts that occurred before the entry into force of Decree-Law 123 of 2023.
L’abrogazione
The Court emphasised that 'there can be no doubt as to the repealing effect, attributable to the legislative intervention of 2023, with regard to the conduct consisting in not having prevented the unjustified absence, for a period constituting circumvention of the schooling obligation, of the child from the school in which he had been enrolled (or in not having otherwise provided for his primary education)'.
Double warning
.Central to the Supreme Court's conclusions is an element that is now present in the new Article 570 ter of the Criminal Code, which was previously absent in the old offence. Where the reference is to the need for the double warning against the person responsible for the minor's education. The latter in fact, according to the reform, must be warned by the school headmaster in the case of at least 15 days of unjustified absence within a term.
The mayor's speech
.If the pupil then does not resume attendance then it is the mayor who is called upon. To the Court, 'it therefore appears clear that the inert conduct of the person responsible for the minor's education (no longer just elementary education, but including the entire "school obligation") assumes criminal relevance only where the double warning has proved fruitless'.
