DOMESTIC VIOLENCE | ETHNIC ASPECT | AFRICAN CULTURE | SKIN COLOUR | BATTERED WOMEN

 

Lisbon Court of Appeal, proc. 735/14.0PLSNT-3, 07.10.2015

 

JURISDICTION: Criminal

SUBJECT: Domestic violence

RAPPORTEUR: Conceição Gonçalves

RULING: Dismisses the defendant’s appeal, upholding the contested decision, which had found the defendant guilty of a crime of domestic violence and sentenced him to three years and six months’ imprisonment, besides prohibiting him from contacting the victim for a period of two years, as additional penalty.

DOMESTIC LAW:

Criminal Code [Articles 40, 50(1), 152, 152-A, 152-B]

1982 Criminal Code [Article 153(3)]

Law No. 65/98, of 2 September 1998

Law No. 7/2000, of 27 May 2000

Law No. 59/2007, of 4 September 2007

Law No. 19/2013, of 21 February 2013

Code of Criminal Procedure [Articles 127, 364(2), 374(2), 410(2), 412, 416, 417, 428(1)]

Supreme Court of Justice, judgment 7/95, 19.10.1995

National Action Plan Against Domestic Violence

INTERNATIONAL LAW: n.a.

FOREIGN LAW: n.a.

KEYWORDS: Domestic violence; good person; fear for life and for bodily integrity; occasional aggression; unemployment; drug trafficking; circumstances that would never lead to charges against a white person; problems with the police like any black person; rules of common experience and of reasonableness; ethnic aspect; African culture; physical and mental health of battered persons; human dignity; lack of self-criticism; regret; internalization of the crime’s seriousness; self-excusing attitude; violent personality; criminal path; domestic violence as a social problem; cyclical behaviour; affective attachment; forced intercourse; monster; jealousy; mutual insults; Spain; Italy; Greece; rascal; lazy; moments of crisis in a relationship; break-up families; USA; standard of assessment; made an example; media outlets; baptism; recordings of the oral testimony; community expectations; romantic relationship; embarrassment; humiliation; drunk; lover; “whore”; “cow”; “bitch”; honour and respect; family of humble social and economic status; belief in a possible reconciliation; welfare of the children; apology; in the eyes of others; incommensurable severity and cruelty of the behaviour; free assessment of the evidence; battered women; egalitarian conjugal reality; space of intimacy; degradation as a person; abuse in front of the children; tragic outcomes; social panic; public unrest; defendant’s criminal past; privacy and silence of the home; smear

COMMENTS: Coming soon.

REFERENCES IN THE LITERATURE:

FRIEDRICH, Nicole, Diferença Cultural Sub Judice: Minorias Étnicas na Jurisprudência dos Tribunais Superiores Portugueses [Cultural Difference in Court: Ethnic Minorities in the Case Law of Portuguese Higher Courts], Braga, University of Minho, 2022, available at https://repositorium.sdum.uminho.pt/?locale=en.

 

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