Penal liability of the participants in case of infanticide

• Author: Laura Roxana Popoviciu
• Position: AGORA University, Oradea, Law and Economics Faculty
• Pages: 236-239

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PENAL LIABILITY OF THE PARTICIPANTS IN CASE OF INFANTICIDE

PhD Lecturer Laura-Roxana Popoviciu

AGORA University, Oradea

Law and Economics Faculty

laura _popoviciu@univagora.ro

Abstract: The emergence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by UN

General Assembly 10/12/1948 marks the "beginning of a new progressive era in the international

protection of human rights and freedoms.

Crimes in international law are committed by people and not by abstract entities. Just

punishing these authors can give effect to the provisions of international law.

Key words: human rights, responsibility, international criminal court, civil rights,

punishment, protection.

Protection of the persona by means of the penal (criminal) law is placed among the major

goals of the penal (criminal) law, the persona being fully protected: physically, morally and

intellectually. The situation is identical even if we are talking about a newborn infant.

In this case we have two different situations:

- the murder of the newborn infant by any other individual, excepting the mother

- the murder of the newborn infant by his own mother

- the murder of the newborn infant by the mother, due to extreme emotional disturbance

caused by the process of giving birth. This is the situation that we are interested in for better

particularize this article, because there are some psycho-physiological states caused by birth, states

that synonymous with a state of unconsciousness, so, without excluding the guilt, this state can

explain in a certain measure the murder of the newborn infant by his mother, no matter if we are

talking about a child born within or outside a marriage.

Admitting the possibility that these kinds of states can occur, the legislator sanction less

harsh the author of this offence (the mother of the newborn infant) in comparison with other

individuals that participated.

The infanticide is in fact an act of manslaughter incriminated by the Romanian legislation in

Title I of the special part of the Penal code, Chapter I, „Offences against life, physical integrity and

health”, Section I, Manslaughter.

Generally, the infanticide committed by the living parentage is incriminated in almost all

criminal legislations of all times as an acute form of manslaughter, known also as infanticide

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.

The aggravating occurrence ensues from the victim’s quality as descendent of the criminal and for

how we assume that the criminal has strong feelings of affection.

The infanticide appears as a special form of manslaughter being incriminated by the penal

legislations of all states as an attenuated form of manslaughter, an attenuated form of infanticide.

This happens because the infanticide consists in murdering a newborn child, act perpetrated by the

mother immediately after giving birth in a moment of disturbance caused by giving birth.

In this case, we are not talking about a homicide committed by any degree of parentage, but

a homicide committed by the mother herself, case in which the homicide is determined by certain

psycho-physiological states caused by the process of giving birth, states that are not synonymous

with a state of unconsciousness but can explain in a certain measure the killing of the newborn child

by his mother.

This offence is possible only if the infanticide was a consequence of the disturbance caused

by giving birth. A neuro-psychic element (disturbance caused by giving birth) introduced in the

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R. Bodea, Criminal Law. Special part, West Printing Off ice Publishing House , Oradea, 1999, p. 122