2023-06-24 22:16:38
by Stefano Passigli
It would have been legitimate to expect proposals aimed at addressing the most significant defect afflicting our Justice: the continuing slowness of trials
From Carlo Nordio, a magistrate even before being a politician, it was reasonable to expect a reform that would address the most significant defect afflicting our Justice: the continuing slowness of the civil trial which has such a negative impact on economic activity, and of the criminal trial where the prescription , far from constituting an extreme solution to the problem of the length of proceedings, often adopted as a defensive strategy by the accused and their defenders, and therefore becomes itself a source of the prolongation of the trial.
The Keeper of the Seals Nordio, betraying his legal training, did not address the major knots of the Justice problem that condition its times (prescription, revision of many substantive and procedural rules, unification of judicial offices, etc.), reiterating the announcement of wanting to introduce the separation of careers in the future but limiting itself in the present to a few and moreover controversial measures. The political debate has essentially concentrated on the abolition of the crime of abuse of office, a proposal which has divided the opposition but which is certainly much less important than the two most relevant and most negative aspects of the reform project put forward by Nordio: the part of the prosecution of acquittal sentences in the first instance, and the limits placed on pre-trial detention and the use of wiretaps. Two aspects on which the oppositions have not focused their attention sufficiently, preferring the far less relevant issue of abuse of office.
In the first case, Nordio’s proposal undermines the constitutional principle of equality between prosecution and defence, which translates into judgment the very principle of equality which is one of the foundations of our Constitution. Nordio’s proposal would therefore require a constitutional revision rule that is very difficult to approve. In the second case, Nordio’s proposals constitute an objective obstacle to the investigations by the prosecutors: how can we think that the time limits set at the beginning of pre-trial detention do not seriously hinder the investigations? Even if the rule were not to apply in the event of a risk of escape, there is no doubt that in other cases the days available to suspects on the loose would result in countless episodes of evidence pollution, pollution which today is one of the prerequisites for pre-trial detention. One gets the impression that the entire regulatory system that the Minister of Justice wants to introduce is not intended to strengthen guarantees, but to make the effective prosecution of crimes by prosecutors more difficult. Are we in the presence of a reform aimed at defending citizens from the abuses of excessively inquisitorial justice, or are we undergoing posthumous revenge against the prosecutorial judiciary by a segment of the political class? Wishing to designate the planned reform in the memory of Silvio Berlusconi does not help a serene examination of the regulations to be introduced, and adds to the suspicion that magistrate Nordio wants as minister to take revenge against his former colleagues.
Deprived of these aspects (unappellability of first instance sentences by prosecutors; limits placed on pre-trial detention and the use of wiretaps) the Nordio reform is very little, and above all it does not in the least attack the main problem of our justice: the slowness of the civil and criminal process. On the contrary, by assigning the decision on precautionary arrest to a college rather than to a single judge, he takes away a few hundred magistrates from normal judicial activity. Finally, not intervening on the judicial system – for example by merging the minor courts – does not contribute in the slightest to the shortages of personnel. In conclusion, a reform that appears vengeful rather than improving the problems of justice. A reform more fruit of the tensions of the past than of a serene assessment of the needs of the future.
June 24, 2023 (change June 24, 2023 | 22:16)
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