ROME (Reuters) - Italy's Supreme Court has decided that a little unexpected pat
on the bottom at work does not amount to sexual harassment -- as long as it's only occasional.

The country's highest court of appeal Wednesday overturned a man's conviction for patting
a female colleague's behind saying there was no evidence that he had behaved ''lasciviously.''
Instead, the court ruled that any pat that is ``isolated and impulsive'' should be OK.

The woman had alleged that the man had also threatened her,
saying he would block her career if she denounced him.

The man was last year found guilty of sexual harassment, sentenced to 18 months in prison
and fined nearly $4,000. But the conviction was later quashed.

The same appeals court sparked widespread outrage in 1999 when it upheld a verdict
declaring that a woman could not have been raped because she was wearing skin-tight jeans.

The court stated that tight jeans could not even be partly removed without the help
of the person wearing them and therefore the woman must have consented to sex.
 

Uh, ...Your Honours?
What if she had a knife to her throat?

Yep, this court is as screwed as America's Whore Court, all right.