Tomorrow, in the Senate Justice Committee, the harsher penalties and sanctions for the abusive exercise of professions for which particular qualifications are required will be voted. The commission will have to decide the extent of the new measures, and if there are different proposals on these among the parliamentary groups, however the principle of raising those currently established by the penal code, generally considered negligible and, therefore, ineffective as a deterrent against professional abuse.
At the center of attention is above all the abusive exercise of the medical and dental professions, particularly serious as it is intended to affect the health of citizens; however, the measure being examined by the Senate has a general scope and, by modifying the penalties and sanctions provided for by article 348 of the penal code, concerns all professions for which the State requires particular requisites and qualities to allow them to be carried out, for the protection of citizens benefiting from the benefits.
The Justice Committee will also discuss the introduction of a specific criminal law against false doctors, precisely in order to make the penalties even heavier for those who commit this crime. Like other amending initiatives, they would like specific regulatory provisions for some sectors of activity. However, the orientation of the majority and of the Government seems to be that of limiting the regulatory intervention to raising the punitive measures, since these are changes that would enter the penal code and which, therefore, it is desirable to remain of general scope.
Currently, for the abusive exercise of regulated professions the penalty is imprisonment of up to six months or a fine ranging from 103 to 516 euros (corresponding to the old values of 200 thousand lire and one million). The prison sentence is also considered ineffective because it can be evaded by paying a pecuniary sanction so negligible as to be incomparable with the income that the false professional can derive from the abusive activity. The bills being examined by the commission envisage raising the prison sentence to at least a year or two with the addition of a pecuniary sanction, even raised up to a hundred times the current one. Furthermore, the confiscation of the material and tools used for the activities carried out illegally is foreseen.
No clarifying intervention is envisaged, however, to delimit the scope of the art. 348 of the criminal code, which generically concerns the professions for which "a special authorization from the State is required", therefore those regulated by article 2229 of the civil code, for the exercise of which registration in special registers or lists is necessary. In this regard, the jurisprudence has variously interpreted the criminal law over time, with reference to the specific activities as well as the methods of their performance by subjects not registered in the Registers.
The provision on the harsher penalties for professional abuse is in its first parliamentary reading in the Senate. After the scrutiny of the Justice Commission and the vote in the Assembly, therefore, it will have to pass to the examination of the Chamber.
