The Eternit Case after the Decision of the Court of Appeal: Some Reflections about the Presence of the Civil Plaintiffs in the Criminal Proceeding
Date | 01 September 2013 |
Published date | 01 September 2013 |
DOI | 10.1177/203228441300400310 |
Subject Matter | Update |
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
3June 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
conrmed the decision at rs t instance, with only a slig ht dierence 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 oence 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 oence alleged wa s intentional
disaster under ar ticle434 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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