Sent to Brussels. They had defined her as “an uninhibited, creative female subject, able to manage her (bi) sexuality and to have occasional intercourse of which at the same time she was not convinced”. They emphasized that he “showed off his red panties while riding a mechanical bull.” And with these reasons, in 2015, the judges of the Court of Appeal of Florence had acquitted seven young people accused of raping a 22-year-old girl, thus overturning the first degree sentence. But now the sentence has arrived: not for the group of young people, but for the judges who wrote that sentence. It is signed by the European Court of Human Rights and says: “The language and arguments used by the Court of Appeal convey prejudices on the role of women who exist in Italian society and which can constitute an obstacle to the effective protection of the rights of victims. of gender violence “.
In practice, the Court of Florence not only “did not protect the rights and interests” of the girl from the so-called “secondary victimization”, but with the reasons for the sentence it actually endorsed the recurrent thesis of “she went to look for it” . An attitude that according to Strasbourg violates Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects “the right to respect for private life and personal integrity”.
The Court does not have the power to overturn the sentence, which remains full acquittal “because the fact does not exist”. But he condemned Italy to compensate the girl 12,000 euros for moral damages, as well as 1,600 euros for expenses. “A sentence that does justice to all women – says Titti Carrano, the lawyer who defended the young protagonist in spite of herself -. The life and dignity of this woman have been trampled on just as her privacy and image have been trampled on ”. The panel of judges lacked unanimity: six judges voted in favor (including the Italian Raffaele Sabato) and one against. This is the Polish Krzysztof Wojtyczek.
The story dates back to July 2008, when a 22-year-old girl at the time reported a gang rape that took place four days earlier. According to her account, seven peers had raped her inside a car near the Fortezza da Basso, where summer events were taking place. In 2013 the first instance judges had sentenced six of them to four years and six months in prison for group sexual violence aggravated “by the physical and mental conditions of inferiority” of the victim, who was under the influence of alcohol.
Two years later, however, the Florence Court of Appeal overturned the verdict, acquitting everyone because “the fact does not exist”, questioning the girl’s credibility for the reasons mentioned above. The sentence became final as the Florence public prosecutor had renounced the appeal to the Supreme Court. The judges’ motivations had immediately raised protests and controversies, which now find support in the Strasbourg verdict. “It is essential – write the judges of the European Court – that the judicial authorities avoid reproducing sexist stereotypes in their decisions, to minimize gender-based violence and expose women to secondary victimization with blaming and moralizing words”.