The magistrates warn the future government: “Ready to contest”

The National Association of Magistrates sends a clear message to the future government: no one touches justice, indeed, the judiciary. During its 35th national congress, held last weekend in Rome, the togas union sent various warnings to the next prime minister and the next minister of justice (Carlo Nordio?). Friday, in the presence of the head of state, Sergio Mattarella, the president of the association Giuseppe Santalucia expressed the “hope that the drive, which in recent years we have seen revived, to be able to put the judicial order in line is finally put aside, taking advantage of the difficulties and the decline in credibility ”. Then Santalucia returned to criticize the Cartabia reform of the judiciary, approved in September, hoping that, “when exercising the legislative delegation, the policy listens carefully to what we have to say“. Translated: the next government be careful to implement the principles contained in the enabling law, aimed at making the criteria for appointing magistrates at the top of the judicial offices more transparent, to reform the procedures for assessing the professionalism of robes (today essentially non-existent), also through the establishment of a performance dossier (so as to be able to also consider the mistakes made by the judges), to end up with the reorganization of the discipline of out of office.

Even more direct, even if hidden, were the claims of the general secretary of the ANM, Salvatore Casciaro: “The institution of the High Court to judge disciplinary proceedings and contested appointments, the separation of careers, the splitting (or dismemberment) of the Board of Governors, the elimination of the compulsory prosecution, the introduction of forms of direct responsibility of the judges, the draw for the identification of the members of the CSM are just some of the initiatives that, if introduced, would lead to the distortion of the current structure constitutional order of the judiciary “. “These are proposals – added Casciaro – which will have to be countered by the joint action of the associated judiciary that it must be ready to commit itself to the defense of constitutional values ​​and citizens’ rights ”. In short, the judiciary is ready to do battle.

“I was surprised by the umpteenth accusation against politics of wanting to ‘put the robes in line'”, Enrico Costa, head of Justice of Action, told the Gazette, also present at the congress. It was Costa himself who promoted the establishment of the judicial assessment file. “I remember – adds the deputy – that pending approval of the CSM reform, the judiciary went on strike, especially against the evaluation file. I called it a strike of the currents, since the magistrates then did not adhere very much to the initiative. However, the text was approved by Parliament and the next government will have to adopt the legislative decrees. I don’t know if the ANM was a warning to the next government to weaken the scope of the reform being implemented or a request to retrace one’s steps. But I think that everything must be rejected to the sender“.

“The spirit of the reform is not at all to put the judiciary in line, but to introduce meritocracy”, adds Costa, underlining the contradiction of robes: “On the one hand they say that there was a period in which the principle of merit was not respected and on which they must make self-criticism. On the other hand, however, they rail against the Parliament which works to ensure that merit is respected, that is, so that evaluations are carried out on the basis of the work done by the magistrates (successes and failures). Also because the errors of the magistrates have consequences on the skin of the citizens. We cannot always play on the irresponsibility of the magistrate, in the sense of the absence of consequences with respect to the error ”.