Italian Supreme Court of Cassation, Criminal Section I, No. 51059/2013, 4 December 2008

Recourse against conviction for attempted “honour” killing of the defendant’s minor daughter. Evaluation of the futility of honour-related motives and applicability of the relative aggravating circumstance.

Artt. 575, 56 Italian criminal code
Art. 61, no. 1 Italian criminal code

1. The aggravating circumstance of futile motives exists when the criminal determination was caused by an external stimulus that was so slight, trivial and disproportionate in relation with the seriousness of the offence as to appear, according to the common way of feeling, absolutely insufficient to provoke the criminal action, so much that it can be considered, rather than a cause determining the event, a mere pretext for the release of a criminal impulse.
This circumstance, however, has a subjective nature, since the justificative reason for the conduct must be identified in the fact that the futility of the motive to commit a crime is an unequivocal indication of a more pronounced criminal instinct and of the more serious dangerousness of the subject.

2. Although not sharable in modern western society, motives that are linked to the respect for family honour and religious faith cannot be defined as futile, since the impetus that in these cases moves the person to act cannot be defined as either trivial nor banal.

(In the case in question, the applicant, of Muslim faith, had felt his family’s honour to be dishonoured by the fact that his daughter was having a love affair and had sexual relations not only without being married and as a minor, but with a boy of a different religion than the Muslim one, thus violating the precepts of Islam.
The courts of merit had recognised the existence of the aggravating circumstance of futile motives, which was contested by the defence and disapplied by the Supreme Court of Cassation, which annulled the judgment of appeal and referred the case back for a new trial and a reconsideration of the sanctioning treatment in the light of the enshrined principle.)