Stendhal is wrong.
Regilla and the others

Abstract The contribution, at the beginning, describes the murder of Annia Regilla, committed by her husband Herodes Atticus and by her freedman Alcimedonte. One of the earliest feminicide in history, chronicled by Philastrus in “Lives of the Sophists”. It pauses upon women’s juridical status in Roman historiography, referring to the couple of inclusion-exclusion outlined by Roman jurists, particularly, and, with opposing views, by Gaius and Nerazius. Glimpses of political events about a supposed emancipation of women during the whole period between Republic and Principality are expaunded. This contribution examines Italian anti-violence legislation, presenting an overall view on measures that Italian regulations has currently provided, in a process of over twenty years of uninterrupted legislative production, but often without an organic perspective; till reaching a synthetic description of new provisions of law no. 168/2023. It also briefly states note about the limits of the legal system, emphasizing institutions self-criticism needed and above all dictated by sanctions imposed to the Italian State by the European court and by CEDAW committee. It presents an overview on statistical data on feminicide in Italy from 2021 to 2024; in conclusion it aims to stimulate critical considerations about widespread disvalues that foment gender violence which represent a very critical social element. In the closing, it sets the seed for for a new future job. An investigation about another unsolved murder. The feminicide of a young lady that goes back to 24 A.D.
Keywords: Feminicide; Italy; Roman Empire; Regilla; Law; Gender Violence.

 

1. The Story of Regilla

Annia Regilla, was noblewaman a Roman who dies in mysterious circumstances in Athens in 160 A. D. A mystery that persists from Centuries. Appia Annia Regilla Atilia Caucidia Tertulla was born in Rome in 125 A. D. She came from one of the richest and most prominent families of roman society. Her name underlines the importance of her family. Regilla was a precious name in Imperial Rome: her family was part of senatorial and patrician aristocracy and gave birth to numerous consuls and magistrates in the distant past and in a recent one. Annia Regilla, at the age of fourteen, was given in marriage to a very rich patrician with Greek origin; he was a well read man and for this reason chosen by the Emperor Antonius Pius as tutor of his adoptive sons, the future emperor’s Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius. Few years after their marriage, Regilla and his husband, Herodes Atticus, moved to Athens. Everything indicated that their future would be marked by happiness and success. But, at the age of thirty five, when she was eight months pregnant, Regilla was kicked in the belly and she died. Herodes Atticus was tried for the murder. Annio Bradua, Regilla’s brother was consul in that year and in the Senate raised the accusation against his brother-in-law. (Pomeroy, 2009: p. 113) Philostratus was in favour of Herodes and in his “Lives of Sophists”, reports the details of the accusation, the trial, the verdict and what followed: “An accusation of murder conceived in these terms was made against Herodes. His wife got pregnant by him, was in her eight month, when Herodes, for a trivial motive, ordered his Freedman Alcidemon to beat her; hit in the belly, the woman miscarried and died” (Guerrino1987: p. 89). Herodes and Alcimedon were the main suspects. Two factors influenced the Roman court to take Bradua’s accusation seriously. Firstly some freedmen with powerful patrons, like Herodes or the Emperor’s family, use to exercise an unthinkable influence in the modern world; in public sphere, for example, emperor’s freedmen could hold the same position of the cabinet ministers in modern states. About the private sphere, they had a similar power. Secondly, women used to write and receive letters to communicate with friends and families. Regilla may have debated with her brother about her husband’s violent nature and let him know about the problems in their life. All visitors coming from Rome surely went back with some gossip. Herodes spent many years in Rome before his marriage so his bad nature was commonly known. He was a valued and praised rethorician but he usually resorted to violence than to persuasion weapons. He had even been accused of having dared to beat the future emperor Antoninus Pius, in 134/135, when he held the position of corrector. From this perspective, Herode’ s desicion to move to Greece just after his marriage takes a particular meaning: in Rome he satisfied his own ambitions and completed the “cursus honorum”. By moving to Greece, he would be freed from Regilla’s family and he would have consolidate his power in his marriage.

 

2. The Process

Regilla’s brother, Bradua, therefore accused Herode of homicide. If hee sister had done anything that warranted the punishment that led to her death, her dishonor would have stained Bradua’s family. Since their father’s death, Bradua became the head of the family and the defender of it’s honor. Plutarch, in the “Roman Questions” (108=Moralia 289 d-e) reports that if, in an exogamous marriage, the husband had mistreated his own wife, it would have been up to her relatives to defend her. Bradua, however, arrived too late. When the news of Regilla’s death reached Rome, her sister’s body was there no more: it had been cremated or buried. All evidences were gone. The shamelessly silenced witnesses. The figure of the public prosecutor didn’t exist Rome, so the interested parties had the task to brought forward the accusation in the trials. Accuser, accused and victim all belonged to the senatorial order (Talbert 1984: p. 16). A court of senators was summoned. According to roman habits, Bradua’s illustrious lineage was considered rarer and more precious than Herode’ s money; however, during rhe trial, he reached to discredit his accuser. Bradua was a patrician of consular rank, he wore an half-moon shaped ivory buckle on his sandals as a symbol of his nible origin. Herode was referring to this when, during his trial in Rome, he mocked him by saying: “your nobility lives in your heels” (That’s what Philostratus reminds in the “Lives of Sophists”). Herode didn’t forget to be an outsider in Rome. He’s grandfather was just an Homo Novus and he didn’t descend from the republican aristocracy like his accuser and like his deceased wife. On the other hand, he was a rethorician and this represented an advantage. However, he spent a lot of time far from Rome, and the trial was held in Latin.
The very fact that a tribunal composed of senators seems to indicate that lot of people in Rome believed in the The court was made of people belonging to the same Bradua’s rank and made of senators that he often met in Rome. An attack aimed at his sisters had the same value that a personal attack against himself: for this reason he gave a speach about himself and his family. Herode and Philostratus, however, interpreted this panegyric as a sign that Bradua had no real evidence to corroborate his accusation; actually, his affirmation of the virtuous traditions of the Anii Regilli, was useful for reassuring the court, implying that Bradua wasn’t a kind of person who would ask to a court to convene for frivoulous reasons. Most of roman senators were in favour of Bradua. He is described as one of the most esteemed among consulats. At the time of Regilla’s death, he was active in politics serving as consul during 160, with T. Clodius Vibius Varus. Herode wasn’t appreciate in Rome because of hirascible and arrogant nature and to be a foreign man. However, although Bradua stated that his sister’s husband was the responsible for her violent death, the Emperor Marco Aurelio validated a really different version of the facts, different from the one provided by Bradua, absolving Herode and laying the blame on Alcidemonte, Herode’s freedman. No one claimed that Regilla died because of a natural death (Pomeroy 2009: p. 121).
Bradua’s accusation was so precise that we presume that Herode was acquitted because of the protection of Marcus Aurelius. The correspondance between Marcus Aurelius and Fronto (Epistles 3. 2), provides numerous evidences that the Emperor took care of his old guardian. The ties between their families were dated back three generations, to the Emperor’s maternal grandfather and Herode’s paternal one. About twenty years before the trial, Marcus Aurelius wrote to Fronto: “I love you both, each of you for his own merits, and I know that he was educated in my grandfather’s house, F. Callisio”. After Regilla’s first son still born, Fronto urged Herode to find consolation in his love for Marcus Aurelius, reminding him that this relationship was more important to him than anything else.
With no doubt, this relationship had a decisive influence on the verdict towards Herode. The court of senators would not have opposed the Emperor’s whishes (Talbert, 1987: p. 295). The fact that Herode was found not guilty suggests his intervention. Power, personal ties and politics, triumphed over justice. The outcome of the trial is an example of roman Law during the Empire, especially when the highest classes of society were involved: the senatorial court bowed the personal whishes of the emperor. To the extent that the verdict preferred aan that was born in Greece to an authentic Roman aristocrat, this case can be seen as a salient part of the imperial policy of integrating members of the foreign elites inside the Empire through assimilation to Italians. In the court, Herode declared that he never ordered Alcimedon to murder Regilla and that his great grief was a proof of his innocence. The burden of the blame was entirely placed on Alcidemon, but he didn’t receive punishment. Its difficult to imagine that a former slave would have perpetrated this type of crime against an emperor’s relative, unless he had been ordered to do it.
Master and freedman were so close to each other that each of them was implicated in the other’s criminal act. Although Herode was tried and acquitted, his behaviour after the trial – not only the extreme expression of pain, but also the generosity towards his freedman’s family (he raised Alcidemon’s daughters as if they where is own) (Guerrino, 1987: p. 89) – seems to indicate that he was guilty. It’s difficult to understand the reason why Herode’s should have killed Regilla or planned her murder.
He probably hoped than Regilla would carry another son (Pomeroy, 2009: p. 121). Maybe Herode obliged Alcidemon to beat Regilla because she made a mistake. But she was pregnant and weak. So, because of an Alcidemon” excessive effort”, he hit a wrong place and Regilla died (Pomeroy, 2009: p. 122). After the trial, Bradua held the position of pre-consul, a position that conveniently distanced him from Italy. In the rivalry with his brother-in-law, Herode was the winner.
In historical sources there are no testimonies about Bradua relating post trial and pre-consulship, that represented the pinnacle of his career. The accusation against the emperor’s beloved guardian, evidently ended his career and his public life. Bradua left behind the hope to regain family’s ancient property placed on Appia, and maybe died after the trial. Who has benefited from the death of Regilla?
Alcimedon and his offspring could be an Although there’s no news about him before the events surrounding the murder, we can deduce from subsequent events that Herode and Alcimedon had a close relationship even while Regilla was alive. The freedman wasn’t executed, probably an Emperor’s favour to Herode. Many years after the death of Regilla, Alcimedon accompanied his masters to Sirmium, in Pannonia, where, in 174, he had been summoned by the Emperor to respond to the accusation of aspiring to tyranny, leveled against him by some Athenian politicians (Birley, 2000: pp. 132-194). That Herode was very close to Alcimedon and treated his offspring as members of his own family, denotes that he approved his freedman’s action or that he had preordained it or that he was in his hands. The previous and subsequent facts demonstrate that th Emperor shared his decision. At Sirmium the Emperor forgave Herodes and Alcimedon, blamed his others freedmen and punished them in a light way. This verdict bring back to the previous one, when Emperor found Alcimedon guilty but without punishing him. Marcus Aurelius continued to cover Herode with an inviolable mantle of protection, making him immune from public and private accusations.
According to Roman law, the child belonged to the father who, exercising “Patria Potestas”, had the right of life and death over his offspring. Under normal circumstances this right was exercised after the birth, not with a kick while the baby was in the mother’s womb. (Pomeroy, 2009: p. 124).

 

3. The legal condition of Roman women at the time of Regina’s assassination

 In the bed rock of Roman law there’s a true history of exclusion and discrimination, it is that of women (Giunti, 2012: p. 324). In the Roman legal experience we find the first, special, well-articulated discipline that imposes a discriminating legal status on female people. The difference between men and women, who didn’t have access to the political institutions of the Roman world, was connected with belonging to a different sexual gender. Women’s situation in Rome was shaped on parameters of extraneousness to constitutional structures, inferiority in legal relations and exclusion from the exercise of political power. In other words,, what is called “the Roman paradox” was put in operation (Cantarella, 1989: p. 557), working through many legal technical mechanism in the precise sense of attributing the conservation and the transmission of male morality and patriarchal tradition, imposed by men. Tha legal relevance of a difference between sexes is established and consequently the special status of women, the aim of which seems to define complementary regulatory regimes of male and female sex and assign them a pretedermined function. Therefor to predestinate women to a complementarity towards men; the perspective appears legally androcentric. Women identify themselves with the role of wives and mothers, there’s no provision for a legal female figure free from male authority.
Marriage ideally fullfills the institutional function that the Roman world assigns to women: to produce descendants for citizens, providing children for their husbands who can also repudiate them (Peppe, 2008: pp 237-239). Marriage has got the purpose of procreation, carried out by the wife and progeny born in father’s legal condition in which he finds himself at the moment of conception, in case of regular marriage. The legitimacy of filiation seems to be a constant, especially for senatorial aristocracy who doesn’t accept the fruit of women’s guilty “unions”. The mother doesn’t have “Potestas” over her children, she cannot adopt or have legal heirs, given that children follow the legal status of their father. Women don’t have the right to get married again before ten months widowhood time has passed, otherwise they could lead to erroneous attribution of paternity (Mercogliano, 2011: p. 14).

 

4. “Female inferiority” for Roman jurists

A characteristic built on the level on Roman jurisprudential logic was women lack of firmness, because they belonged to the weaker sex. The “technical” terms of legal Latin used to designate female weaknesses are, usually, “INFIRMITAS” and, rarely used, “IMBECILLITAS”. Gaius significantly uses “levitas animi” (Scialoja, 1960: p. 357). In other words, the social logic of the discriminating regulatory frame work appears constant, in the sense that they go beyond the narrow sphere of one’s personal interests, to take a wider meaning of a recognized civil duty or a function of public-constitutional importance. The classic example is that of “Tutela”, unreachable for women (Viarengo, 2009: pp. 139-140). Usually the expressive choice and rhe current meaning in the dominant culture have repercussions on the regulatory regime of “Tutela” (“protection”): jurists think (not all of them) that female sex is such a form of “infirmity”: a condition of disability, an impairment that makes a woman, of any age, incapable of carrying out certain tasks: “negotio… proper sexus infirmitatem… non habilis”, as Nerazio, in D27, 10, 9, sets without hesitation. Those tasks that the dominant Roman culture, marked by a chauvinistic print, use to consider a male prerogative, like “Tutela, minus masculorum”.
With regard to the definition of “levitas animi gaiana”, R. Quadrato specifies, in Gaius dixit: “compared to others recurring expressions present in the legal vocabulary, “infirmitas sexus” particularly, “levitas animi” has got a different tone. Freed from any reference to the body freed from the specification”sexus”, but replaced by the genitive “animi”, that move the view from the physical sphere to the intellectual and psychic ones, the Gaian expression presents another dimension, opens a new way. There’s no biological inferiority in women. There’s no natural diversity between males and females. Disagreeing with a dominant persuasion (a culture), Gaius support the thesis of soul fickleness, of the instability of characters. A weakness also found in men that doesn’t make women inferior, “incapable” to carry out negotiating acts, incapable to assume tasks thought to be for men: “Virilia Officia”. According to these limitations or capabilities, there were some reactions or achievement from women? And on what level? It’s probably interesting to consider some indicative and economic level.

 

5. “Feminine” events between Republic and Principality

On a political level, a significant “feminine” event in Roman republican life, seems to be the famous abrogation of the “Lex Oppia” (Mercogliano, 2011: pp. 25-36). In 195 b.C., roman women staged a sensational public protest demonstration. Taking to the streets, asking for the repeal of a sumptuary law, the “Lex Oppia”. A law against luxury, that twenty years before, after the defeat of Cannae, strucked women. Every sumptuous performances were forbidden because they would have undermined a social climate of crisis, concretely from “Hannibal at the gates”, who demanded wide spread solidarity between classes and also required that no hateful caste privileges be flauted as a display of wealth (Goria, 1987, p. 264).
The plebiscite proposed by the tribune Oppio, later repealed by Valeria Fondana law, prohibited Roman women from wearing multi-coloured clothe, from from using a two-horses carriage and from wearing gold jewellery of the weight of more than half an ounce. Another female “mass” protest, famously remembered in literary sources, occurred in the critically context of extraordinary taxes during the second triumvirate. The famous Hortensia led it in 42 bC, who obtained that the triumvirs lightened an edict that wanted to force the 1400 richest Roman women to an exceptional tax action, commensurate with their personal wealth, as a contribution to the exorbitant military expenses. Well, the significant cases reviewed, analysed in extreme synthesis, seem to address towards two different and opposing reflections. In doctrine, infact, it’s claimed that Romans had an ideal model of women: “chaste, housewife and silent”, but “at the end of the Republican age and in the first centuries of the Imperial one, this ideal model coexists with female realities documented by literary, epigraphic an archeologic sources that have a bit of this ideality, but who always must deal whit it, positively or negatively, when it involves their public image” (Lamberti, 2003: p. 301). To conclude, Roman women, during Republic and Principality, is trapped in a dialectic, substantially and formally different, between legal limitations and inabilities, on one hand, and social roles and functions, on the other.

 

6. The Others

These are the facts. This is the social, cultural and legal context where one the first feminicides in history took place, at least one of the first to be documented, the first among many. Historians and writers have investigated the phenomenon since ancient times, the results is imprinted on tens, thousands of texts. At every latitude, in every century, feminicide is always tragically current, a dramatic constant that continues into contemporary age, even in Occident, that has been able to describe, like no one at all, “the gentle love”. Forced marriages and domestic violence in Venice, the “queen of the seas”; rapes in Bourbon Sicily, violence against women in Byzantine and ancient Rome; witch hunt during the Middle Ages; women persecution in France and in Germany; psychological violence and crimes in the Duchy of Milan; violated women and evil spirits in Florence; feminicides and threats in Eastern Europe and in the most remote countries. Eben proverbs warn from danger: “Whoever says women, says damage”; “With fire, women and sea, there’s nothing to joke about”; “One swallow doesn’t make a summer but three women make a fair”, and so on. Sterotypes and prejudices, authentic discriminations that have continued until today, and that have their roots in the origins of civilization. Sophocles, Euripides and Aristotl also boast about it: “When a woman thinks by herself, she thinks badly”. When this turns into obsession, seem that bringing death, man’ s pursuing his own personal redemption: to kill a woman because she transgressed, because disavowed man’s authority, by prevailing in study, in work, in sport; because she made feel him fragile for not respecting his desire of supremacy. Yes, “homo homini lupus” but also: “homo mulieri lupus”.
The murder of a woman, yesterday like today, is the tragic outcome of a sick obsession that germinates and takes shape in the attackers head when thoughts become action and frustration turns into violence. The germ of wickedness that characterizes these gruesome events, has never been eradicated throughout centuries, evidences are found in ancient Rome too, as amply demonstrated. Every year, on August 15th, Italian Ministry of the Interior, publishes all data relating to its activities, the annual trend of crimes and a focus on gender violence. The data relating the numbers of feminicides in Italy from 2021 to 2024, speak of a massacre, genocidal numbers. (Website: www.istat.it/Commissione_parlamentare_inchiesta_femminicidio). During 2021 there were 119 victims of murder, almost the 90% victims of feminicide; during 2022 there were 126 murders of women, the 92,7% of them killed by men. During 2023, 120 female victims, 62 killed by partners or by ex-partners. From the first of January to 18 of August 2024, there were 62 women who were victims of feminicides (Website: www.interno.gov.it/focus_femminicidi/). So from the first of January 2021 to 18 of August, 427 feminicides took place in Italy, 427 women are no more among us, 427 broken lives because of men. We remember them through a story, unfortunately true. Few people know that the 25 of November is the day in which Institutions invite us to reflect about the atrocious phenomenon of feminicides; this date was chosen by the UN in 1999. During 1960, in Dominican Republic, three women were murdered: Patria, Minerva and Maria Teresa. They were killed because of fight against the authoritarian regime of Rafael Trujillo, dictator from 1930 to 1961.
During his charge, he repressed all forms of opposition he also encouraged gender violence. Trujilo became infatued and obsessed with Minerva Mirabel converted in his victim. Minerva and her sisters tried to stop his power and they adopted a code name for their clandestine activity: “Mariposas”, a Spanish word meaning “butterflies”. The dictator declared that the presence of the three women hindered the exercise of his power. He gave a public speech and to its end the chilling discovery: in a desert and remote street, the “Mariposas” were found dead after a brutal beating. This assassination disturbed people, probably awakened their conscience, as consequence the end of dictatorship. The story of Mirabel represents the symbol of women’s resistance against a corrupt and bloody regime and can demonstrate how a butterfly flapping wing is able to oppose the storm (Website: www.bariseranews.it/fermarelaviolenzacontrole donne/).

 

7. Eighteen centuries laterFocus on anti-violence legislation in Italy

The provisions introduced by law 24 November 2023, no. 168 don’t allow to understand the overall framework of measures that Italian legal system has got, after twenty years of continuous legislative production, but often without an organic perspective. It’s useful to illustrate the different axes along with the response of the Italian legal system has unfolded to the problems of substantive and procedural law that the social issue of gender violence against women has raised over time, see law no. 168/2023, that constitutes only the last and most recent “island”, of that “legislative archipelago” in which, according to the Supreme Court (United Sections ruling, 01. 20. 2016 no. 10959), the legal practitioner in Italy has to move (Michelangnoli, 2016: pp. 1071-1079). With Law 5 August 1981 no. 442 “repeal of the criminal relevance of the cause of honour”, the italian legislator had limited itself to formally expunging from regulations those provisions that legally sanctioned the social tolerability of gender violence against women, repealing the specific mitigating circumstances of murder and injuries, even aggravated, to the detriment of the spouse, daughter or sister or of anyone who is in an illegitimate carnal relationship with them due to “a state of anger determinated by the offense caused to his or her family’s honor” (article 587 of the criminal code).
It was only in the aftermath of the action plan adopted in Beijing following the Fourth World Women’s Conference (4-15 September 1995), that Italian Government undertook to outline an action for the prevention and repression of “violence in personal relationships”, setting itself the priority objective of establishing a permanent observatory and a legislative introduction of urgent precautionary measures in the event of “domestic violence”. With law 15 February 1996, no. 66 “Regulations against sexual violence”, the incriminating cases of the offense against sexual freedom were finally placed among the crimes against the person, eighteen years after the popular initiative law (Virgilio, 1997). The first reform, the result of a discussion with feminist anti-violence centres, was law 5 April 2001, no. 154, concerning “measures against family violence”, for example the precautionary measure of family removal order (article 282-bis of the criminal code) and the protection from family abuse order (article 342-bis), (Di Lorenzo, 2016: pp. 1250-1256). Over the years, additions and modification to substantive and procedural criminal law have followed through legislative decrees, confirming the prevalence of an emergency reading of the issue, outside of a systemic framework, as well as interventions resulting from the alarm generated by the pressing case in the news: the decree-law 23 of February 2009, no. 11 converted by law 23 of April 2009, no. 38, introduced the crime of persecutory acts, configured in the penal code in article 612-bis, the specific precautionary measures of the ban on approaching the offended perso (article 282-ter c.p.p.) and the atypical precautionary institution of the Police Commissioner’s warnin, burdening the police with the obligation to inform offended people about the anti-violence centers available in the area.
Furthermore, access to the benefit of legal aid at state expense has been provided for all people offended by the crime of sexual violence regardless of income, as a tool to facilitate the possibility for offended people to make use of an experienced technical defense in the sector. The decree-law of 14 of August 2013 converted by law 15 of October 2013, no. 119, labeled by the press in the terms of the law “on feminicide”, is the first initiative taken after law 27 of June 2013, no. 77, ratifyng the Council of Europe Convention for the prevention and the combat against women and domestic violence (later on the Istambul Convention), that however didn’t immediately, completely and coherently fulfill the obligations arising from the newly ratified international act (Tierney, 1982: pp. 207-220). Law no. 119/2013 introduced changes to the criminal code, to the code of criminal procedure, extended the warning and introduced the residence permit for non-European citizen victims of domestic violence. Criteria have been included for the priority treatment of criminal proceedings for crimes of mistreatment, stalking, sexual violence and other spy crimes. Furthemore, the system of planning and management of protection measures has been outlined, committing the legal system to the adoption of a periodic national anti-violence plan with the provision on a regional basis og programmed financial resources, to strengthen the existing anti-violence centers and to increase their diffusion across the territory, in compliance with international qualitative and quantitative standards regarding the reception and support of women according to a gender and feminist approach (Di Nicola Travaglini-Menditti, 2020: pp. 5-16).
On 19 of July 2019, law no. 69 was approved and from the press was defined “red code”, borrowing the expression from the name of the emergency routes that give access to A and E, as it is aimed at giving a boost to speed in the handling of criminal proceedings in the matter through an accelerating deadline for the assumption of summery information from the offended person (within three days of the news of the the crime). Law no. 69/2019 has also expanded the catalog of crimes affected by accelerated treatment in the trial phase pursuant to article 132-bis disp. att. c.p.p. with new incriminating cases such as forced marriage (article 558-bis of the criminal code), the deformation of person’s appearance through face permament injuries (article 583-quinquies of the criminal code), the illicit diffusion of sexually explicit images or videos (article 612-Ter criminal code), violation of precautionary measures and protection orders (article 387-bis criminal code).
Law no. 69 also established that minors under the age of eighteen, witness of mistreatment, must be considered victims of the crime, thus codifying the so-called “witnessed violence” (Inverno, 2018: pp. 20-22). The interventions on the criminal procedure code are united by the aim of avoiding that any stagnation between acquisition of the news of the crime, it’s registrations and the start of preliminary investigations, could delay the adoption of measures to peotect the persons offended by the crimes of mistreatment, sexual violence, persecutory acts and aggravated injuries committed in family contexts or within cohabitation relationships. The aforementioned specific legislative interventions have been interspersed with further initiatives that, although not expressly dedicated to the issue of gender violence against women, have made changes to substantive criminal and procedural law relevant to the implementation of international obligations and European law. Furthemore, we recall the procedural reforms referred to in law 23 of June 2017, no. 103 (so-called “Orlando” reform) and Legislative Decree 10 of October 2022, no. 150 (so-called “Cartabia” reform). Meanwhile, in 2018 with the law of 16 of February no. 4, measures were introduced to support orphaned children following feminicide, while, after the repeated condemnation by the Presidency of the council to pay compensation to victims of crimes for failure to transpose Council Directive 2004/80/EC of 29 of April 2004 relating to the compensation of crime victims, the European law 2015-2016, of 7 of July 2016, no. 122, regulated the compensation in favor of victims-resident or not in Italy-of malicious crimes committed with violence to the persons, as well as of the crime referred to in article 603 bis of criminal code. (Illicit intermediation and exploitation of labour), with the exclusion of the crimes referred to in articles 581 and 582 of the Criminal Code apply. A composite picture of interventions emerges, in which the legislator’s favorite area remains criminal law, with the formulation of new crimes, a progressive increase in penalties and further declination through the aggravating circumstances of the specifities of ilicit conduct. Another context of constant change was the criminal procedural context integrated by provisions aimed at implementing the right of access to justice, considered internationally to be the essential prerequisite for women to be guaranteed a life free from violence in practice (Cedaw Committe, General Recommendation no. 33 on women’s access to justice, 2015), to be configured according to a multidimensional scheme, with a prohibition on alternative methods such a mediation and conciliation or other institutions that may involve contact between the victim and the perpetrator of the crime (article 48 Istanbul Convention). Starting from law no. 69/2019, the prevention and administrative measures have also been redesigned; the suspension of the sentence conditional on access to dedicated recovery paths was envisaged, while with the “Cartabia” reform specific provisions were introduced wich ensure a timely response from the civil judge based on the principle of the most extensive and rapid protection in the event of “allegations of violence” (Razzi, 2023: File 3), as well as further criminal procedural changes, including restorative justice institutions, a field of investigations and reflection still open, also in light of the delays in the implementation of the system of necessary services.

 

8. The new provisions of law no. 168/2023

Law no. 168/2023 is made up of nineteen articles that contain amendments to the Criminal Code, criminal procedure code, prevention and administrative measures. The general purposes of the law are the prompt handling of cases, the adequacy of protection before, during and after criminal proceedings, without neglecting the implementation issues of the recovery paths for perpetrators of violence. Furthermore, indications relating to the specialization of offices and the training of operators, including the judiciary, are introduced, as well as the possibility of requesting, if the victim is in need, an advance payment of compensation paid by the State. The legislator has provided for a strengthening of measures regarding warning and information to victims of gender violence. In detail, the article 1 of the aforementioned law provides that “in the cases referred to in articles 581, 582, 610, 612, second paragraph, 612-bis, 612-Ter, 614 and 635, committed or attempted, of the penal code, in the context of domestic violence, the police commisioner, even in the absence of a complaint, can proceed having obtained the necessary information from the investigative bodies and having heard the people informed of the facts, at the warning of the author of the fact”. A significant innovation concerns the duties of the police in cases in which they have news of crimes committed in the context of domestic violence as amended by the co. 5 of the Legislative Decree No. 93/2013 (converted, with amendments, into Law no. 119/2013). This rule infact provides that: “The measures referred to in paragraph 1 of article 11 of the legislative decree of 23 of February 2009, no. 11, converted, with amendments, by law 23 of April 2009, no. 38, are also applied in cases in which the police, health facilities and publici institutions receive from the victim news of crimes referred to in articles 581, 582, 610, 612, second paragraph, 614 and 635of the penalcode in the scope of domestic violence referred to in paragraph 1 of this article”. This provision therefore provides that, in the event that Police Force receives from the victim a report of a crime relating to the hypotheses referred to in articles 581, 582, 610, 612, second paragraph, 614 and 635 of the penal code committed in the context of domestic violence, they are obliged to provide the victim with all information relating to the anti-violence centers present in the area and, in particular, in the victim’s area of residence. Other innovations that impact on the activity of the police force can be found in articles 10 and 12 of law no. 168/2023. Article 10, entitled “Deferred arrest in flagrante delicto”, inserts the art. into the Code of Criminal Procedure 382 bis, rule according to which: “in the cases refetred to in articles 387 bis, 572 and 612 bis of the Criminal Code, anyone who, on the basis of video-photographic documentation or all type of materials legitimately obtained from computer or telematic communication, from from which the fact emerges, is the perpetrator, provided that the arrest is carried out no later than the time necessary for his identification and, in any case, within forty eight hours of the fact”.
Therefore, on the basis of this new regulatory provision, if the offended person, victim of domestic violence, promptly goes to the police to report crimes referred to in the articles 387 bis, 572 and 612 bis of the Criminal Code whose existence emerges from video-photographic documentation, the police forces can proceed the perpetrator of the aforementioned crimes within forty eight hours from the moment of the commission of the crime, being able to speak, in these cases, of deferred flagrancy. Article 12 of law no. 168/2023 modifies numerous rules of the Code of Criminal Procedure, including art. 275 bis of the Code of Criminal Procedure, dedicated to the regulation of precautionary measures for wich the application of the electronic bracelet is envisaged. In detail, paragraph 1 of the art. is amended 276 bis c.p.p., the current wording of which provides that: “In ordering the measure of house arrest also as a substitute for precautionary custody in prison, the judge, unless he deems them unnecessary in relation to the nature and degree of the precautionary needs to be satisfied in the specific case, prescribes control procedures using electronic means or other technical tools, subject to verification of the relative technical feasibility by the judicial police”. The modification made by the Legislator is therefore aimed at preventing precautionary measures such as house arrest or the ban on approaching the offended person from not being effectively monitored due to the lack of control tools such ad the “electronic bracelet”; it is for this purpose that the Legislator had provided for a “preventive assessment”, delegated to the judicial police, aimed at verifying the actual availability and functioning of these control tools.

 

9. The limits of the order and self-criticism need

The common denominator of the legislative interventions that have followed one another over the years, except in the case of law no. 119/2013 and the restorative justice services outlined by Legislative Decree no. 150/2022, is the financial invariance clause, a political choice that certainly represents one of the substantial limits that most affects the concrete operation of the institutes introduced or reformed. Despite, in fact, the composite compendium of legislative provisions described above and considered abstractly suitable as a whole to guarantee a response compliant with the obligations of international law and European law (Cedaw Committe-Concluding observations on the eight report if Italy, of February 2024), from the experience of women, as documented by anti-violence centers and feminist shelters, a deep distance emerges between the formal plan of the institutes introduced and the substantial plan of their effectiveness and efficacy. In fact, on the one hand, there’s an overall underestimation of the precautionary needs in criminal proceedings that arise from women’s complaints for one or more forms of gender violence, with the effect of compromising the legal system’s ability to ensure that the offended persons from the crime the “primary” protection, namely that set of measures useful to protect against the repetition by the suspect/ accused of further violent conduct. On the other hand, it is necessary to guarantee adequate protection “internal” to the process against “secondary and repeated victimisation, intimidation and retaliation, including the risk of emotional or psychological harm, and to safeguard rhe dignity of the victim during interrogation or testimonies” (Art. 18, Directive 2019/29/EU). The distance between the formal legislative plan and the substantial plan of the implementation of the provisions introduced has been highlighted over the years as a problematic profile of the Italian legal system by the monitoring committees of the international conventions binding for Italy, such as the Convention for the elimination of any form of discrimination against women (CEDAW) and the Istanbul convention (this is what emerges from GREVIO’s Basic Evaluation Report on the legislative and other measures to be adopted to give effect to the provisions of the Convention of the Council of Europe on preventing and combatting violence against women and domestic violence). This gap has received many criticism: firstly the extraordinary commission of the Senate for human rights in 2012 and then the parliamentary commission of inquiry of the Senate on feminicide as well as on every form of gender violence, over the years have highlighted the application problems and shortcomings of the law on violence against women, highlighting the secondary victimization of women as a widespread problem both in criminal trials and in civil proceedings relating to parental responsibility. The Italian legal system was then repeatedly scrutinized by the European Court of Human Rights, that, following the appeals of women and their families, found serious and widespread problems of effectiveness in the application practice of the various provisions introduced, especially with regard to protection in cases of gender violence, in violation of article 14 of the Convention. The decision of the European Court and of the CEDAW Committee, clearly highlighting the gaps in the legal system and the violations committed by the authorities in individual cases, have, in any case, certainly contributed to the most recent legislative reforms, also giving a signal in terms of social reparation towards the direct victim of the violation. They also promoted a path of awareness and self-criticism among legal practitioners; however, the level of ascertainment of the individual responsibilities of those who, representing thw internal authorities, produced ascertained violations is unsatisfactory, if not even consistent with a substantial impunity wich undermines social trust in the effectiveness of the measures envisaged by the Legislator. Therefore, alongside systemic initiatives, including training and awareness-raising planned together with civil society (in particular anti-violence center’s and feminist shelters, organizations promoting women’s rights) that law no. 168/2023 doesn’t adequately valorise and that instead would be desirable to actively involve, the need arises to ensure effective and accessible internal accountability mechanisms, from disciplinary and self-control measures to criminal investigations into the omissions reported (or ascertained before international bodies) of those acting as representatives of the authorities, as well as accelerating the establishment of an independent human rights monitoring authority with specific expertise on gender-based violence against women, as lastly recommended by the CEDAW Committee; this is also in consideration of the fact that the most recent initiatives for monitoring the legal system, such as for example the commission, are dedicated to a prevalent, certainly meritorious, work of documenting violations and of bad practices that limit women’s access to justice, providing the legislator with a panorama of corrective measures to ne adopted, but don’t outline or recommend a sanctioning or remedial response to the violations that emerged in the concrete cases under investigation.

 

10. Conclusions

The socio-juridical fabric that emerges from the examination conducted and the critical reflection on widespread disvalues, fueled by a certain misogynistic culture, legitimize and justify the incipit of this work, is Stendhal wrong? “… he’s worthy of being my master, because he was on the verge of killing me…” (Stendhal, 1927: p. 753). Just an hiperbole consciously chosen by the author of “Le rouge et le noir” or the tragic representation of reality, of yesterday and today? From the chilling examimation of the statistical data, you should lean for the second one, but those names, the names of the women murdered by men hands, scream that they never imaginated it, never thought about it, never wanted it. Those women just wanted the right to be free. Inevitably, it is on this social substratum that a violent culture survives over time. It’s nourished by clichés about masculinity, following a model of strength and authority. Daily news data constantly reveal the issue of discrimination between sexes and in particular the issue of persecutory acts and gender violence, as a highly critical social element that is difficult to avoid. This is so true that the atrocious episode of feminicide appear, in recent years, to run counter to the reduction in homicides in general. To date, feminicides reach 300. 9%of homicides. One in three is a “pink” murder, gender violence kills more than Mafia. And so, “From Giulia to Annia and back”, an emblematic title of an article that appeared online immediately after the murder of Giulia Cecchettin (Website: www.liceobenedettodanorcia.edu.it), seems, more than any others, to represent that violence against women has ancient roots and stubbornly persists, probably because is far from defeated. Women killed by men just because they are women, this is feminicide. Some above all. Giulia Donato, Martina Scialdone, Oriana Brunelli, Yana Malaico, Alina Cristina Cozac, Felina Marino, Santa Castorino, Maria Febronia Buttò, Sara Ruschi, Brunetta Ridolfi, Pierpaola Romano, Giulia Tramontano, Maria Brigida Pisacane, Floriana Floris, Margherita Ceschin, Mariella Marino, Anna Scala, Marisa Leo, Pierina Paganelli, Giulia Cecchettin, Vincenza Angrisano, Vanessa Ballan, Rosa D’Ascenzo, Maria Rus, Delia Zarniscu, Ester Palmieri, Annalisa Rizzo, Nicoletta Zomparelli, Renée Amato, Sara Buratin, Sofia Stefani, Giada Zanella, Manuela Petrangeli, Lorena Vezzosi, Francesca Deidda, Giusi Massetti…

 

11. The last word for Apronia

Rome. The crime scene is the following: at the foot of a high window lies down the lifeless body of Apronia. Hwr husband, Plauzo Silvano, is under investigation, and her father-in-law, Lucio Apronio accuses him. The suspect declares that when the crime was being committed he was sleeping, so he has nothing to do with it. He hypothesizes that Apronia has committed suicide (website: www.bariseranews.it). One of many cases of crime that we are sadly use to archive in our mind, but this time, this fact date back to 24 AD. The victim, connected like the others at the same cursed common thread, is Apronia, a young woman. We ignore everything about her, except the details of her death and the intricate legal affair in which she was involved. Tacito chronicled her history in his “Annales” (Annales, IV 22). The case remained unsolved and Apronia forgotten. But time does not erase the torment she suffered because of a man. A well-known slogan reads “no one less”, borrowing its meaning, that also serves as a warning “let’s remember all of them”. And so we cannot lose the memory of Apronia and her dramatic end, she can’t be considered “one less”. The story of Apronia deserves to be told in a near future.