The Eternit Case after the Decision of the Court of Appeal: Some Reflections about the Presence of the Civil Plaintiffs in the Criminal Proceeding

Date01 September 2013
Published date01 September 2013
DOI10.1177/203228441300400310
Subject MatterUpdate
New Journal of Eur opean Crimina l Law, Vol.4, Issue 3, 2013 315
THE ETERNIT CASE AFTER THE DECISION OF
THE COURT OF APPEAL: SOME REFLECTIONS
ABOUT THE PRESENCE OF THE CIVIL
PLAINTIFFS IN THE CRIMINAL PROCEEDING
A D A*
1. In my earlier contribution (e Eternit case as seen from the trenches of t he
def ens e)2 I was referring to the ca se at rst instance.
At second instance the Court of Appeal of Turin delivered its oral decision on
3June 2013. ose present at the hearing included the mayors of the towns i nvolved,
with their town a gs, hundreds of civil plainti s draped in Italian a gs and anked by
their lawyers and dozen s of journalists and cameramen.
So the conviction of Stephan Sch midheiny was perceived and treated as a festiv ity.
I was, as I declared to t he press, indignant.
2. As I write these short notes i n the middle of August, the writt en decision has not
yet been handed down. However, from the oral decision it is possible a lready to discern
and discuss some aspe cts of the reasoning.
e penalty in icted on Stephan Schmidheiny was increased f rom 16 to 18 years.
At rst blush it would seem that the decision of the Court of Appeal substantially
conrmed the decision at rs t instance, with only a slig ht dierence in the penalty: a n
increase from 16 to 18 years.
Such an evaluation would be tota lly incorrect.
As I wrote in my rst contribution, the prosec ution argued the liabil ity for damages
arising from the spread ing of asbestos dust both inside and outside the factories .
With respect to the interior of factor ies, the oence alleged was intentional fai lure
to implement security measures at work, u nder art.437 of the Criminal Code , which
provides for a penalty of imprisonment from three to ten years, in the event of a
disaster or accident resulti ng from this failure.
With regard to the exterior of the factories, the oence alleged wa s intentional
disaster under ar ticle434 of the Criminal Code, which is punishable by a term of
imprisonment from three to twelve yea rs.
* Member of the Editor ial Board of the NJECL. D efence lawyer of Schmid heiny in the Eternit trial.
1 NJECL , Vol. 3, Issue 1, 2012, p.8-13.

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