Two years ago a man went to work in Brussels and forgot his six month
old baby in the car. Upon his return after work, the child had died from dehydration.
After arrest and interrogation, he is arraigned for
involuntary manslaughter. Two years later the case comes to court. The
prosecution demands a conviction for involuntary manslaughter, but does not push
for any effective prison term or other punishment: they will be satisfied with
a confession of guilt. The defense
demands acquittal.
The judge has followed the defense and grants acquittal. What
is (more than) surprising is not the acquittal as such, because it was obvious
that the ‘crime’ was an accident rather than a willful act, and that the father has
already been punishment enough by having to live with the loss of his child and the memory
of his deadly negligence.
What is, indeed, stupefying, is that the judge motivates the
decision of acquittal by stating: if a person can forget a mobile phone in the
car, then (s)he can also forget his baby, for it shows that a person is not in
control of the brain function which we call memory. Therefore (s)he cannot be guilty.
Such judgments open a Pandora Box of questions, starting
with “to what extent is attention for a mobile equal to attention for your own
little baby” or, less straightforward, do we all suffer from serious Altzheimer from Day Zero?
Worse for “civilisation at large” though, is the very basis of the argument: namely the thought that our legal system
now has put a stake in the ground where “not remembering” has become just a bodily
function over which we have no direct control, a disease really, which (obviously) affects
some people more often than others, and some people in a totally different degree than
others.
This ruling must be a first in the so-called civilised world (and is almost definitely impossible anywhere else in the world). Considering that Belgium is one of the most advanced and
rich countries in the world, the ruling implies that the (o so advanced) Belgians are less and less
in control of themselves, that they are turning into “just mammals”, with a
brain – at one time yonder the center of human supremacy – that leads a natural
life all by itself, like a liver perhaps. The ruling may also illustrate that
the judge, being Belgian among Belgians, is already a vivid example of this new
brand of homo sapiens, namely those people with brains they don’t at all control.
Grimburger, October 14th 2014
