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Women cannot commit rape?
French Supreme Court rules that women cannot commit rape
Copyright � 1998 Nando.net
Copyright � 1998 Reuters News Service
PARIS (October 21, 1998 06:38 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) -
France's
Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that women are unable to commit the
crime of
rape because they cannot sexually penetrate men.
"The material element of the crime of rape is only realized if the
perpetrator
commits the act of sexual penetration on the person of the victim," it
said in
its judgment.
The court, known as the Cour de Cassation, overturned a lower court
ruling
that Catherine Maillard could be tried for rape on charges of forcing
her
underage stepson to have sex with her repeatedly between 1986 and 1992.
Maillard could only be tried for "aggravated sexual aggression" against
the
boy, while his father Michel Deloisy had to be tried for "moral
abandonment of
a child" instead of the original charge of "complicity in aggravated
rape,"
the court said.
With its judgment, the court seemed to contradict an earlier ruling it
issued
in December 1997 saying that forcing someone to perform oral sex act was
legally equivalent to rape.
--
Tim Griffiths [email protected]
Center for Submicron Research http://tim01.ex.ac.uk
Weizmann Institute of Science (972)-8-934-2736
Rehovot 76100 Israel
PGP Public key available - finger [email protected]
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