As a result of various news events concerning criminal offenses committed by the military, it seems necessary to clarify the difference between "degradation" and "removal" from the degree, which are sometimes confused, also due to a terminology that, indeed, can be drawn in deception who is not properly "of the trade": both are foreseen by the military penal code of peace (cpmp) and counted among the so-called "accessory punishments" (imposed, that is, in addition to a principal punishment-alias imprisonment), together to the suspension from the employment, to the suspension from the degree and, finally, to the publication of the sentence of condemnation, but they differ substantially from each other.
The degradation, in fact, is the most serious accessory punishment, and is applicable to all the military, including those of troops: it involves, for the one who suffers it (including the simple military) the cessation of belonging to the Armed Forces (cancellation from the roles), besides the right to preserve the decorations already acquired or to receive further ones, as well as the ability to perform tasks or works for the Armed Forces themselves (unless the law provides otherwise).
It is generally ordered following a particularly high principal conviction (life imprisonment, imprisonment of not less than five years, as well as for any other sentence imposed with the declaration of "criminal habitation" limited to judgments pronounced against military servants or in leave for military crimes), and runs to all effects from the day on which the relative sentence became irrevocable. Often it is also accompanied by the additional common penalty of interdiction from public offices (Article 28 cp1).
The removal, on the other hand, is applied to all the military covered by a degree, consequently those belonging to the last class (simple military) are excluded.
Those who are subjected to such an accessory sentence are, in fact, subject to the condition of a simple soldier, whatever the degree previously held.
Unlike the degraded, however, the military removed from the rank retains its "military quality", although it remains permanently a simple soldier, remaining precluded any career opportunities.
This penalty does not produce civil effects (like the previous one) and is, as a rule, imposed in the event of a sentence of more than three years.
Historically, it seems to have known about these crimes already in the Roman republican period, when the military (and public officials) who had demerited in their duties could be subjected to three types of measures which, in order of increasing gravity, were: militiae mutatio, gradus dejectio , ignominious missio2.
La ignominious missio (which corresponds to today's degradation), also called exauctoratio, in fact it consisted in expulsion from the army or in the interruption of the public role covered (the provision was celebrated with a ceremony in which the condemned was deprived in public - precisely to underline the infamy of the signs that characterized his condition).
La gradus dejectio o regradatio, on the other hand, to which the "removal from the rank" is comparable, led the condemned to the loss of grade and honors gained during the career.
(illustration: Michele Marsan, michele.marsan@gmail.com)
1 It can be perpetual or temporary and deprives the condemned person of the right of active and passive electorate, of any public office and any non-compulsory public service assignment, of the quality of guardian or curator, of academic degrees and dignities as well as the possibility be awarded.
2 Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, The University of Chicago., 2001, pp. 4: 757 - 4: 759. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
