STEALING small amounts of food to stave off hunger is not a crime, Italy’s highest court of appeal has ruled. Judges overturned a theft conviction against Roman Ostriakov after he stole cheese and sausages worth €4.07 (£3; $4.50) from a supermarket, as per a report of a local daily.
Ostriakov, a homeless man of Ukrainian background, had taken the food “in the face of the immediate and essential need for nourishment”, the court of cassation decided. Therefore it was not a crime, it said.
A fellow customer informed the store’s security in 2011, when Ostriakov attempted to leave a Genoa supermarket with two pieces of cheese and a packet of sausages in his pocket but paid only for breadsticks. In 2015, Ostriakov was convicted of theft and sentenced to six months in jail and a €100 fine.
However, his case was sent to appeal on the grounds that the conviction should be reduced to attempted theft and the sentence cut, as Ostriakov had not left the shop premises when he was caught. Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation, which reviews only the application of the law and not the facts of the case, on Monday made a final and definitive ruling overturning the conviction entirely.
Stealing small quantities of food to satisfy a vital need for food did not constitute a crime, the court wrote. “The condition of the defendant and the circumstances in which the seizure of merchandise took place prove that he took possession of that small amount of food in the face of an immediate and essential need for nourishment, acting therefore in a state of necessity,” wrote the court.
The ruling of the court has established a common truth — people rarely steal food unless their hunger is so serious that it merits such actions. The stealing of food is unique from stealing antiques or other collectibles which are of high value — as such thieves are merely criminals who are doing so for adding to their personal wealth. However food remains singularly the only item which people steal to merely survive.
Nonetheless this ruling may have little practical effects, as most poor people who are in desperate need of starvation are unlikely to go on a rampage in supermarkets to steal food. What may occur is that such markets may ban people of disheveled appearances from appearing so as to reduce their risks.
Whatever the effect may be, it is welcome as a pro-poor people ruling. The lower income classes rarely have the law behind them. Famous examples like Clarence Gideon, a poor drifter who filed a writ of certiorari with the US Supreme Court to overturn his conviction are rare. More common is the lament of Justice Chagla, Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court from 1948 to 1958, as when he asked why certain courts would not hear the cases of poor petitioners. We hope for more of such proactive rulings from all High Courts of the world.
