In an unprecedented verdict, applying the orientation outlined last July by the EU Court of Justice, the Third Civil Section of the Supreme Court recognised the right to compensation by the Italian State in favour of a woman who had suffered sexual violence in 2005.
As required by Italian law, after the criminal conviction of the defendants, the woman had requested compensation from them in the civil trial and was unable to obtain it.
The issue of non-compensation ended up before the EU courts in Luxembourg because Italy had not adequately transposed the EU directive on non-compensation to victims.
“The Luxembourg verdict to which the Supreme Court has now adapted is very important because it also indicated that the measure of compensation cannot only be of a symbolic amount, as initially set out in the Italian ‘settlement’ tables for non-reimbursed crimes, but must be satisfactory with respect to the suffering suffered even though it does not coincide with the injury suffered in its entirety”. Without going into too much detail about this matter covered by privacy, if initially the victim of the sexual assault in 2005 had been ‘liquidated’ for less than five thousand euros, now the figure has increased tenfold“.
For further details, we leave you the link to the news published by la Repubblica, the Italian national newspaper.