(Ab)Solution ?

The Case Beaussard.

In the picture, a collector’s armchair at the ‘Civic Museum Ala Ponzone’ (1928) in Cremona, Italy.

In July 1989, in France, in the industrial district of Lille, the seventeen-year-old Ida killed her father Jean Claude Beaussard in his sleep, with a single shot of the big ‘Luger‘. He himself had taught the use of weapons to his five daughters, of whom Ida was the third-born, with daily military training and physical brutality such that had already led the older sister to flee from home, shortly before the crime.

It was perhaps the threats addressed by the father to the sister Christine, that induced Ida into an act that will then haunt her for a long time. “…He wanted to make little soldiers of us… He forced us to copy entire pages of ‘Mein Kampf‘ by Adolf Hitler which was his only reading…“[1]  Previously, in October 1986, the Court of Lille had already convicted Jean Claude Beaussard of ‘incitement to racial hatred‘, however releasing him a few months later.

On May 18, 1992 the Assize Court in Douai, where the trial against Ida took place, pronounced a sentence - that was historic to say the least – of acquittal for ‘legitimate parricide‘ after the General Attorney had requested a minimum suspended penalty of two years. [2]

France today together with Hungary are the European Nations that are starting the institution of specific ‘Juvenile Courts‘ : the same ones that in Italy have been recently proposed to be abolished, committing minors to ‘ordinary‘ Justice. With what foresight, one might ask ?

Marina Bilotta Membretti / Cernusco sul Naviglio – February 2, 2014

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[1]‘Ida, histoire d'une parricide’ – F.Hamel, Flammarion 1994  ‘La Repubblica’, 19 maggio 1992.

[2] The suspended sentence is established by the Italian Law for a variable period of few years, and it is offered to the accused of a non-serious crime, following a conviction and as a trial period during which the accused undertakes not to repeat the crime : it is an institution of great importance as it benefits those who have not previously committed other crimes.