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The case raises key questions:
1. How is individual liability determined in class actions?
2. Is it necessary to prove a direct link between a defendant's conduct and the harm caused?
3. Should the same liability be attributed to all participants in an aggressor group?
The Supreme Court answers these questions with a general statement: active integration in an aggressor group implies assumption of the collective result, unless there is proof of dissociation from the group action.
In the words of the Court: ‘From the moment a person joins a group to attack another, he assumes the result that such joint action may cause, unless he proves that his conduct was completely unrelated to the group's purpose’.
The Supreme Court bases its decision on the following principles and doctrines of criminal law:
a. Principle of Reciprocal Imputation.
The Court considers that collective actions must be analysed as a functional whole, not as a sum of isolated conducts: ‘It is an action that, even if it was not planned, even if it was the result of a tacit or implicit agreement that arose at the time, does not allow discriminating between some and others to examine in an artificially atomised way what each one does: all those who undertake at that final moment are responsible for an attack’.
This principle establishes that, by acting together, each participant contributes to the final result and reinforces the overall aggression.
b. Unity of Collective Action
The Court rejects analysing individual actions in isolation, as this would be incompatible with the nature of group dynamics, stating that ‘Collective action does not break down into artificially disconnected fragments.’
c. Shared Fraud
The Court emphasises that malice does not require prior planning or explicit agreement. The existence of an implicit agreement arising at the time of the action is sufficient: ‘Shared intent and joint action make it possible to impute to the defendant the result of a collective action of aggression, without the need to prove directly and individually the impact of her conduct on the final results’.
d. Assumption of Responsibility for the Collective Result
Each member of the aggressor group bears the consequences of the overall action, unless it proves that its conduct was wholly unrelated to the common purpose. The Court in this respect stresses that ‘There is no uncontrollable or unforeseeable deviation or excess, which escaped shared malice.’
During a demonstration, a group of people, including the defendant, threw objects at police officers. Two officers suffered injuries: one sustained a contusion to his hand and another suffered cervical contracture, dizziness and vertigo when his helmet was hit.
Although it was not proven that the objects thrown by the defendant directly caused these injuries, her active integration in the aggressor group was proven. The Court indicates that it is not necessary to identify which specific object was thrown by each member of the group: ‘It is not criminally feasible to distinguish, for the purposes of subsumption, between those who merely threw light objects and those who threw more forceful ones’.
The defendant argued that there was no evidence that her specific conduct caused the injuries. The Court dismissed this argument on the following grounds:
1. Active Integration into the Group
The defendant actively and knowingly participated in the group assault, which reinforces the overall violent action. According to the Court: ‘Each one threw whatever he could (fruit, papers or any object at his disposal), but in any case with his action he assumed and supported the action, which he could not fail to notice, of those who threw objects with a greater capacity for injury’.
2. Impossibility of Atomisation
To analyse in a fragmented manner the individual conduct of each participant would be contrived and inappropriate since for the Court: ‘It is not necessary to prove which specific object each participant threw nor the specific impact of his conduct.’
3. Assumption of the Collective Result
From the moment the defendant became part of the aggressor group, she assumed the consequences of the overall result, ‘the intimidation inherent in the group attack and the throwing of objects, whether blunt or not, constitute a coordinated aggression in which all participants assume the consequences of the action.’
This judgment establishes a key precedent for criminal liability cases in contexts of group violence. Its contributions include:
1. Extension of Collective Responsibility :The judgment reinforces that all members of an aggressor group are responsible for the joint result, even if their specific contribution cannot be isolated.
2. Use of Global Context as Evidence: The Court legitimises the use of contextual evidence and group dynamics to support a conviction.
3. Implied Wrongdoing and Tacit Agreement: An implied agreement between the participants is considered sufficient to impute the joint result to them.
This judgment represents an important advance in the interpretation of criminal law in relation to violent collective actions. In the words of the Court: ‘The damage and injuries caused are a natural and foreseeable consequence of the joint aggression, so that all those who actively participated in it are responsible for the results’.
The ruling emphasises that active integration in an aggressor group generates collective criminal liability. The Court also complements this idea by stating that it is not necessary to identify a direct relationship between each individual action and the harmful result. This is why shared malice and joint action are sufficient to justify a conviction.
This judgment reinforces the importance of considering the overall context of collective actions and their impact on the results in order to determine the criminal liability of the participants.
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