Medical Negligence During the Pandemic: The Italian Choice for Criminal ‘Shields’ and the Need for Further Reform

Despite the many reforms carried out by the Italian lawmaker over the years, the subject of healthcare professionals’ criminal liability has remained strongly controversial among scholars and has raised some criticism regarding the current state of the domestic framework. Ever since the outbreak of the pandemic, then, concerns have been growing due to the inadequacy of the system to properly face the crisis. After an introduction aimed at providing an overview of the domestic legislation and case law, the paper specifically focuses on the issues posed by the sanitary emergency. By analysing the Italian choice to introduce specific shield-provisions (norme scudo), it will be argued whether a better regulation of the subject-matter, together with a careful evaluation of the subjective features of negligence, would represent a preferable approach to deal with the long-standing issue of criminal responsibility arising from medical malpractice.