Pierre Palmade has been on trial since Wednesday November 20 at the Melun court, 21 months after the road accident he caused. Three people were very seriously injured in this accident, including a six-month pregnant woman who lost her baby. Why are we only talking about “unintentional injuries” and not “manslaughter” for this accident? Because in law, the child who is born already dead has no existence.
For Maître Vincent Julé-Parade, lawyer specializing in the defense of victims of road accidents, guest of RTL Midithis trial is an opportunity to question this rule. “This trial is the opportunity to question a legal void“, he explains. “You have the crime of manslaughter, if the child is born alive and viable. And in the event that this is not the case, where the mother would have lost it due to the accident, we have no legal qualification to offer. This means that we have no answers to give to the victims.”
For him, we must ask ourselves: “Would it not be necessary and useful to create a particular qualification, which allows a balance between the legitimate debate on the beginning of life and also the consequences of irresponsible actions on our roads.
The expertise is clear: it was indeed the accident caused by Pierre Palmade which caused the death of the unborn child. “The investigating judge did not accept the qualification of involuntary homicide because the expertise seemed to point in the direction of non-viability, the non-life of the fetus when it was extracted.” The fetus was never alive outside the womb after birthand a child who is not born alive does not exist as a legal person.
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