Decree against attacks on doctors is law: deferred arrest within 48 hours

The Chamber of Deputies gave the final go-ahead, with 144 votes in favour and 92 abstentions, to measures to combat violence against health and social care professionals in the performance of their duties and damage to health care property. The law provides for compulsory arrest in flagrante delicto and, under certain conditions, deferred arrest in flagrante delicto for the crimes of personal injury committed against health and social care professionals and their auxiliaries, as well as for the crime of damaging goods intended for health care.

The regulation stems from recent cases of violence against doctors, nurses and health care personnel. It therefore intervenes on assaults on persons and damage to health care property. It also provides for imprisonment in prison for one to five years and fines of up to EUR 10,000, as well as deferred arrest, within 48 hours of the facts, if there is video footage or other evidence proving the crime, thus overcoming the lack of flagrante delicto.

The provision introduces the offence of assault committed inside or in the appurtenances of residential or semi-residential, public or private health or social care facilities, with violence to the person or with a threat, or in the act of committing the offence of personal injury to a public official on public order duty at sporting events, to staff exercising a health or social health profession and to anyone carrying out auxiliary activities functional to it. In particular, it is punished with imprisonment from one to five years and a fine of up to 10.000 euro whoever, inside or in the appurtenances of residential or semi-residential, public or private health or social-sanitary facilities, with violence to the person or with a threat or on the occasion of the offence (personal injury to a public official on public order duty at sporting events, as well as to persons exercising a health or social-sanitary profession and to anyone carrying out auxiliary activities functional thereto), destroys, disperses, deteriorates or renders, in whole or in part, unusable things existing therein or in any case intended for the health or social-sanitary service. The provision also provides for a special aggravating circumstance with a common effect (the penalty is increased by up to a third), which occurs when the offence is committed by several persons together.

It provides for compulsory arrest in flagrante delicto and, under certain conditions, deferred flagrante delicto for offences of personal injury committed against health and social care professionals and their auxiliaries, as well as for the offence of damaging health care property. The 'deferred' flagrancy is an institution that allows, when it is not possible to proceed immediately with the arrest, to consider in a state of flagrancy (Article 382 of the Code of Criminal Procedure) a person who, on the basis of video-photographic documentation from which the fact emerges unequivocally, is the author of the offence, provided that the arrest is made no later than the time necessary for his identification and, in any case, within forty-eight hours from the fact.