A 30-year long clash between politics and the judiciary – Corriere.it

The minister said recently Charles Nordio that the conflict between politics and justice was initiated by Prosecutor of Milan with the invitation to present himself as a suspect delivered in the press at the time Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, in November 1994. In reality, that same year, the Berlusconi government had already tried – in the middle of summer – to weaken the investigations and the power of the magistrates with the decree renamed thieves saver, withdrawn following the resignations on live TV of the Clean Hands prosecutors. And the previous year another government, headed by Julian Amatowas stopped by the head of state Oscar Luigi Scalfaro in an attempt to decriminalize the illicit financing of parties, after the protests of the Milan prosecutor Francesco Saverio Borrelli.

The pool

That executive had been decimated by the chain resignations of the ministers affected by the guarantee notices and the subsequent one, chaired by Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, was born crippled after the Chambers had rejected by secret ballot the requests for authorization to proceed against the secretary of the PSI Bettino Craxi. Popular protests followed, to which the young Missina in which Giorgia Meloni already served gave her contribution by symbolically besieging the Palazzo di Montecitorio under the slogan Surrender, you are surrounded, and the subsequent abolition of the authorization to proceed. Then in ’94, at the time of forming its first government composed also from heirs of the Italian Social MovementBerlusconi attempted to enlist as ministers two prosecutors who were symbols of that judicial season, Antonio Di Pietro and Piercamillo Davigo, with the mediation of Cesare Previti and Ignazio La Russa. The two declined the invitation, but later Di Pietro was enlisted as minister by Romano Prodientered Parliament and even founded his own party.

The nineties

These are some scenes taken from the last decade of the last century to document how the clash – but also the encounter – between politics and justice has been repeated cyclically for more than thirty years, in often similar forms and in some cases with the same actors. With different ages, responsibilities and positions, but identical names and surnames. After all, if there is one who benefited from the judicial revolution of 1992-93 and then was swallowed up by it, it was Berlusconi. Proving that the intertwining of political destinies and actions (or reactions) of the judiciary can have fluctuating and unpredictable outcomes. For anyone.

The bicameral

When at Palazzo Chigi Sal Massimo D’Alema, the bicameral commission for institutional reforms was marching straight towards the separation of careers between prosecutors and judges, stopped by the opposition of the Magistrates Association (under the institutional protection of President Scalfaro) even before by the decision of the leader of Forza Italia to get out of it. Then when Berlusconi returned to power, the season of ad personam laws began to direct the processes in favor of the prime minister-accused, with the consequent compaction of robes, of all currents and of all colors, in defense of the autonomy and independence of the jurisdiction, which is under attack by the government and Parliament. A bit like what happened (in a small way) in April, when Minister Nordio started disciplinary action against three Milan judges guilty of having put the Russian wanted by the US awaiting extradition under house arrest and fled to return to his homeland ; a political initiative to blame the judiciary for a diplomatic crisis.

The conflict continues

But even in the last decade, with the founder of Come on Italy no longer at the center of the scene (also due to the forfeiture of senator following the definitive conviction of 2013), the conflict between the executive and legislative powers on the one hand and the judiciary on the other, has resurfaced on and off. Partly due to the instrumental use of judicial or para-judicial events by politics, and partly due to the recurring attempts to conditioning investigations and trials through reforms which had to remedy initiatives by the judiciary deemed to condition politics and the functioning of democracy. Because the political and media use and abuse of certain investigations and sentences (apparently unfounded or extravagant investigations, sentences destined to turn into acquittals and vice versa) has not led to the meekest advice to avoid exploitation and hasty conclusions (such as requests for resignation for a guarantee notice or a non-definitive verdict), but to the applicant’s attempt to bridle the judiciary and its representatives. Just think about Matthew Renzi, who before becoming a guarantor and calling himself the designated victim of the red robes invoked the defenestrations of this or that minister precisely starting from their para-judicial misadventures; and a couple of his trusted deputies found themselves in parallel and clandestine councils to decide on appointments outside the Superior Council of the Judiciary.

Today the Meloni government, with two magistrates sitting in as many key positions (in addition to Minister Nordio il Undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council Alfredo Mantovano, a virtuous example of revolving doors between political and judicial power, if that practice weren’t held up as pernicious), he feels surrounded by robes suspected of making political opposition, rather than administering justice. Imagining who knows what common plots and strategies between Different prosecutors and courts.

In this climate, reforms have been proposed which, even if they have a foundation, inevitably arise under the bad star of revenge or the phallus of reaction. Provoking once again the protests of the judiciary, to which politics reacts with the usual call for the separation of powers (which nobody questions, but it doesn’t matter). Maybe trusting that among the robes someone will start to get tired and give way, after thirty years and more of conflicts that are always the same. Almost.

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