by the means mentioned therein is simply grievous without producing the more serious effects described in Section 232 If these more serious effects in fact ensue, then the punishments prescribed by Section 232 apply irrespective of the means whereby the harm has been caused. Grievous Bodily Harm Ending in Death A person guilty of grievous "bodily harm from which death ensues solely as a result of the nature or the natural consequences of the harm and not of any supervening accidental cause is punished: (a) With hard labour from six to twenty years if death ensues within forty days from the midnight immediately preceding the crime (b) With hard labour or imprisonment from four to twelve years if death ensues after the said forty days but within one year reckoned as above. The punishment is hard labour or imprisonment from three to nine years if death ensues as a result of a supervening accidental cause and not solely as a result of the nature or the natural consequences of the harm. This is a form of homicide “praeter intentionem”. If the intention of the doer, wrongfully causing a bodily harm, was that of killing and death ensues, he is guilty of wilful homicide and not of this special crime. So also if his intention was to put the life of the victim in manifest danger. Death being easily foreseeable as a probable consequence of the act, the grave result which ensues is treated by the law as if it were intentional. But where the intention of the offender was merely to cause a bodily harm, even though serious, but not such as to expose the victim to manifest danger of life, and death ensues, then this result goes beyond this intention and the law cannot justly punish the act as one of wilful homicide. The death, which was neither desired nor actually foreseen nor patently foreseeable as a likely consequence of the act, cannot fairly be charged against the offender as wilful. But in so far as his intention was directed to the wrongful injury of another, he must, though to a lesser extent than if he had intended, directly or indirectly, to kill 1 answer for the death which his act has in fact caused. And for this it is not necessary to enquire whether the death was more or less foreseeable. The following dictum said with reference to the Italian Code of 1889, applies to our law: Page 285 of 350
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