Femicide: the crackdown on stalking of minors is not retroactive
Yes to an alternative to imprisonment for offences committed before the enactment of Law 181/2025
Key points
The judge cannot refuse to replace a prison sentence with community service for the convicted person for stalking of a minor, on the basis of the law on femicide, if the offences were committed before the law came into force. The Court of Cassation (judgement 24298/2026) confirms that Law 181/2025 does not apply to acts committed before 17 December 2025, the date on which the law came into force.
The Supreme Court has therefore upheld the appeal, in so far as it relates to the requestfor an alternative measure to imprisonment, because the offence of stalking committed, as in the case under consideration, against a person under the age of 18, has been included amongst the so-called ‘precluding offences’, listed in Article 4-bis, paragraph 1-quater of the Prison Regulations, solely by virtue of Article 5 of Law 181/2025. This is a more onerous provision which could not, therefore, be applied.
The facts of the case
The defendant had been sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, with the mitigating circumstances offsetting the aggravating circumstances arising from his having reoffended within the past five years. He was the subject of obsessive jealousy – which had resulted in assaults, hundreds of phone calls, messages and stalking – his ex-partner, who was to blame for ending the relationship.
The judges’ stance
The Court of Cassation upholds the conviction but accepts the ground of appeal relating to the failure to rule regarding the request for community service submitted in good time by the defence.
The Court points out that, pursuant to Article 545-bis of the Code of Criminal Procedure governing alternative penalties, the lawyer’s application should have provided for, in the event that the judge was unable to reach a decision immediately, consultation with the parties following the judge’s deliberation, with the operative part of the judgment to be supplemented if necessary. Alternatively, in the event of further investigations, an ad hoc hearing should have been scheduled within sixty days, suspending the proceedings to obtain the information deemed appropriate by the external criminal enforcement office or the judicial police. In any event, the Court of Appeal was obliged to rule on the request made. And it could not fail to do so by hiding behind a ground of inadmissibility represented by the new legislation on femicide.
