Plagio is an Italian term deriving from the Latin "
plagium
Child abduction or child theft is the unauthorized removal of a minor (a child under the age of legal adulthood) from the custody of the child's natural parents or legally appointed guardians.
The term ''child abduction'' includes two leg ...
". The Italian criminal code defined it as "Whoever submits a person to his own power, in order to reduce her to a state of subjection, is punished with imprisonment for five to fifteen years". Such a crime has not been prosecuted in Italy since 1981.
Annulment
The crime of plagio had rarely been prosecuted in Italy, and only one person,
Aldo Braibanti
Aldo Braibanti (Fiorenzuola d'Arda, September 17, 1922 – Castell'Arquato, April 6, 2014) was an Italian poet, essayist, screenwriter, playwright, director, and visual artist. He fought as a partisan in the Resistance, returning to his intellectua ...
, was ever convicted after the Second World War, for his relations with a younger man he was accused of brainwashing into communism and homosexuality in 1964. It was later declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court with decision no. 96 of 8 June 1981. The court found the law to be so vague that it failed to meet the criteria set out in Article. 25 of the Constitution. Specifically, the substance of the crime was impossible to fully assess with logical-rational criteria, creating an intolerable risk of arbitrary prosecution and conviction.
A few years after the declaration of unconstitutionality of the plagio at the presence of
Leonetto Amadei
Leonetto Amadei (Seravezza, 7 August 1911 – Marina di Pietrasanta, 10 November 1997) was an Italian lawyer and a politician.
Amadei graduated from the University of Pisa. As a lawyer, he often took on cases defending the weak, the oppressed, a ...
, the President of the Constitutional Court of the Italian Republic,
Mario Di Fiorino organized a scientific conference in Forte dei Marmi in 1989 on "Socially accepted persuasion, plagio and brainwashing", for the discuss of the new situation.
[Mario Di Fiorino (Ed): La persuasione socialmente accettata, il plagio e il lavaggio del cervello, Forte dei Marmi, Psichiatria e Territorio vol . I, 1990.]
References
{{Reflist
Law of Italy