Report of violence is valid even if made during separation proceedings

On the opposite line, annulling the second instance sentence with a new remand to the Salerno Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court. For the Supreme Court (and as rightly reiterated by the Prosecutor General who had appealed), the judges of merit had not adequately analysed the facts, behaviour, acts and evidence available, trespassing into evaluations strongly influenced by prejudices and subjective opinions. To the extent of victimising the abuser and questioning the victim's inalienable decisions, such as the choice to go to a party despite having been beaten a few hours earlier or to criminally denounce her husband at the time of separation.

Not only that: the Court of Appeal, in formulating its reasoning, had in fact also used language that seemed to blame the woman or to reduce to 'strong animosity' the violence she had suffered, belittling it with respect to the reality of the facts (insults, humiliation and sexual assaults that had gone on for years, even in the presence of the children; psychological supremacy exercised, for example, by forcing his wife to give up her job in order to make her economically dependent on him even for small things or by distancing her from family and friends).

For the Court of Cassation, therefore, it was not at all improbable that the offended party had decided to denounce her boyfriend many years after the beginning of the violence and of the abusive behaviour: according to the law, in fact, the timing of the complaint for crimes of gender violence cannot and must not influence its reliability. Similarly, the truthfulness or otherwise of the complaint is not affected by the choice to conceive two children with the violent husband: using it as a hook to question the victim's statement, according to the judges of legitimacy, the offended person is automatically attributed 'the responsibility of not having escaped the abuse in time', ignoring the fact that - as is well known - in the cycle of violence there are moments of quiet and repentance or, however, of apparent normality of the violent subject.

A delicate issue on which, of course, the CEDU has also expressed its strong concern that 'the courts' qualification of violence as domestic violence may depend on the victim's ability to tolerate it, either by enduring years of abusive relationships without making a complaint or by getting by on her own'. An interpretation that must be countered by pushing the state even more to encourage women to report, without asking why they did not do so earlier.

Like dominoes, all the other reasons put forward by the appeal judgement collapse. In which, for example, there was no mention whatsoever of the economic violence that the man exerted on his partner, precluding her from anything that did not force her into the roles and tasks that society had assigned to her, including conjugal duties that did not envisage reciprocal consent. Or in which the testimonies and objective data (which emerged from photographs) confirming the assault and subsequent injuries claimed by the woman were omitted. All elements that, cut and sewn ad hoc, seemed almost to have been strategically used to obtain 'an alternative explanation of the facts to that reported by the offended person' and to prove the absence of compatibility between what was said and what happened.

Also serious, according to the Supreme Court, is the tendency to reduce violence to normal quarrels between spouses because the dividing line between the two extremes is clear and does not admit of confusion. "Qualifying, in a couple or family context, intimidation, threats, isolation and control as expressions of "mere animosity" not only deforms objective data," reads the ruling, "but also violates the fundamental principles of the legal system, starting with Article 3 of the Constitution, which requires women to be considered on an equal footing, legally and in fact, with men because they are both holders of the right to dignity and freedom. In family squabbles, both parties are equal and express their point of view without fear of overreaction. In violence, on the other hand, one party prevents the other from expressing its point of view. With blackmail, manipulation and threats (in the case of a mother, for example, to remove her from her children if she denounces).

Obviously, both the accusation that the victim has lost credibility for having constituted herself as a civil party 'only to chase economic interest' is illegitimate, since this is a right recognised by the law and, in particular, for women victims of violence, so as to guarantee them equal access to justice and to counteract the stereotype that labels them as trustworthy only if they are fragile, passive and unwilling to seek compensation. Both the insinuation and doubt about her statements given her participation, after the beatings, in a family celebration.

But let us come to the core. The last reason used to support the woman's unreliability: her choice to report during the separation process. For the judges of legitimacy, believing that she did it on purpose to punish her husband or to get money out of him is nothing more than yet another stereotype that blames the victim and relieves the perpetrator of responsibility. And that is not all: the fact that a woman, a victim of domestic violence by her partner and in the middle of a separation, has decided to denounce him in order to also obtain sole custody of her children and the allocation of the family home cannot but speak in her favour because it is in line with the law. Which, among its priorities, emphasises the right of minors to live and grow "in caring and protective family contexts". The mother, therefore, rather than for her own benefit, has shown that she acted to protect the children and ensure their happy life.