Mattarella to the new magistrates: “Autonomy and independence are indisputable safeguards”

“Article 104 of the Constitution recognizes the autonomy and independence of the judiciary from any other power. They are indisputable safeguards through which the jurisdiction can ensure, without conditioning, the impartial application of the law”. The President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, speaks to the new ordinary trainee judges. He recalled that the judiciary “is entrusted by the Constitution with the protection of rights, through the application of the law. These are tasks aimed at guaranteeing the equality and equal dignity of people, fundamental values ​​in a democratic state”. Not only. “The awareness of such a high function is part of the ethical heritage of the Italian judiciary, whose traditio is entrusted to the judicial order as a whole, which is therefore also required to maintain constant and rigorous attention to the behavior of its individual components”, adds the head of state.

Addressing the young magistrates, he observes: “It is a very high task that in a few months you will be called to carry out, in the offices you have just chosen. As judges or prosecutors you will have to make decisions that affect people’s lives, sometimes even dramatically. It is necessary that this awareness, accompanied by a high sense of responsibility, always guides you in the decision-making activity. Your decisions must be governed by the wisdom of the law. No fear of possible reactions of public opinion or of interests involved but careful consideration of the issues, avoiding arbitrary regulatory reconstructions, dictated by improper desires for originality or, worse, for judicial individualism”.

“The role of the magistrate takes place within the ambit of a legal system and takes advantage of continuous opportunities for dialectical confrontation within the articulations of the judicial offices. To this end, it must always be kept in mind that the relevant decision is the one that the judicial authority as a whole it will be able to provide, not only that of its single actor.This must help, on the one hand, not to personalize the decision – never persistence to support pre-established theses – and, on the other, must lead to a thorough evaluation of the case concrete to provide the decision with a high strength of resistance in the various degrees of the judgment: in this way the uniqueness of the judicial order as a whole finds expression”, continues the President of the Republic.

Then Mattarella’s advice: “You need to be willing to listen, to be able to ponder the decision, the result of seriousness in deepening and adequate weighting in the judgment. In fact, by cultivating doubt even on one’s initial certainties, the best decisions are adopted which mature following a broad comparison – he observes – The evolution of society determines the emergence of ever new questions of justice.The Judiciary must be able to provide an answer to them, through the skilful activity of applying the law, which must be conducted along the binary of principles and constitutional values. For this reason it is necessary to bear in mind – as recently reaffirmed by the United Sections of the Court of Cassation – that interpreting the rules means recognizing their existence and effective scope, with the exclusion of any function directly Within the framework of constitutional balances, marked by the division of powers, in fact, judges are subject only to the law, in the sense that the law represents their foundation and at the same time their limit”, concludes the head of state.