What Article 195 of the Criminal Code punishes
Article 195 defines the offence of failing to render assistance, a pure omission offence that punishes a lack of solidarity in the face of danger to another person, regardless of whether the person who fails to act caused that danger. Paragraph 1 punishes anyone who fails to assist a person who is helpless and in manifest, serious danger, when they could do so without risk to themselves or others. Paragraph 2 extends the same penalty to anyone who, being unable to give direct assistance, fails to urgently seek help from others (for example, by calling the emergency services). Paragraph 3 increases the penalty where the victim is the victim of an accident caused, whether by chance or through negligence, by the very person who failed to help.
Penalties
Paragraphs 1 and 2 carry a fine of three to twelve months. Paragraph 3 distinguishes by the origin of the accident: if it was accidental, the penalty is six to eighteen months' imprisonment; if it resulted from the offender's own negligence, the penalty rises to six months to four years' imprisonment. This last bracket is the most serious in the article, because it punishes someone who first negligently causes the accident and then also abandons the victim without help.
How it relates to Article 382 bis: fleeing the scene of a road accident
Where the person who fails to render assistance is the driver of a motor vehicle or moped and leaves the scene after causing the accident themselves, the conduct may instead fall under Article 382 bis (leaving the scene of an accident), which applies precisely "outside the cases covered by Article 195" and provides for different terms of imprisonment — and, where relevant, disqualification from driving — depending on whether the accident was negligent or accidental. The line between the two provisions turns on whether the resulting harm reaches the threshold required by Article 382 bis (death or the injuries covered by Articles 147.1, 149 or 150) and on whether leaving the scene involves no risk to the offender.
Defence strategy
Defending against a charge of failing to render assistance requires assessing, case by case, whether there was genuinely a manifest and serious danger apparent to the person who failed to act, whether direct assistance carried a real risk to themselves or others that justified merely seeking help, and whether help was sought from others with the urgency the offence requires. It is also relevant to show that a third party had already taken over rendering assistance, which can remove the duty to act. The failure-to-rescue defence service develops these criteria.