When he was warned of the murder of Except LimaGiovanni Falcone commented: “Now anything can happen”.
He was not mistaken even in that circumstance Giovanni Falconewho immediately understood the significance of that fact: it was the beginning of the revenge of Cosa Nostra devastated by the sentence of the Supreme Court of January 30, 1992, which confirming the accusatory system of maxi process it shattered the myth of the Cosa Nostra’s impunity and also revealed the definitive wear and tear of the relationship between the Cosa Nostra and a piece of state.
In that same tragic summer, Parliament added art. 416 ter to expressly punish the relationship between mafia and politician at the time of the elections: the decree law of 8 June was converted into law on 7 August, with Italy stunned by the massacres of Capaci and via D’Amelio. The crime of vote of political-mafia exchange was “slipped” into the Criminal Code exactly ten years after Parliament had struggled to put the 416 bis in it, even in that circumstance only after the brutal assassinations of Pio La Torre and Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa. An important rule to stigmatize the very essence of the dangerousness of the mafias: the subversion of the democratic order through the systematic pollution of the democratic exercise of power, starting with the selection of the representatives of the sovereign people.
An intelligent rule because it is capable of isolating, among the conducts that feed the strength of the mafias, the most hateful one, that is, that of the politician who, in order to win, evokes and legitimizes their power. A provision written in an ineffective way (it would be interesting to recover the parliamentary documents, but this is not the place) who knows if for superficiality, haste or malice – above all because the consummation of the crime would have claimed to be demonstrated by the proof of the “giving of money”. Now which politician can be so wicked as to put the price of the Mafia’s voting service in an envelope? And in fact, since 1992 few were those sentenced for 416 have!
Starting from 2013 and up to 2019, the article underwent a profound parliamentary review through subsequent interventions that significantly modified it, making it more adequate overall. I found myself one of the protagonists of this long political struggle, having been the rapporteur of the provision for the majority in the Chamber between 2013 and 2017. The pressure to make the reform a radical watering were formidable and I think no less impressive were the tensions that led to the (for now definitive) changes that took place in the XVIII Legislature and entered into force in June 2019.
This is not the place to retrace the reasons and effects of the various interventions; however, there is room to clarify in any case at least two characteristics of the case that no one has questioned since 2014. The first: the flooding of the “audience” of criminally relevant conduct, or the crime is understood to be committed not only when money is given in exchange for votes, but when the politician offers in exchange for votes any kind of utility to the mafia. The second is equally important and consists in the anticipation of the consummation of the crime at the moment of the “exchange of promises”, that is, at the moment of the agreement between the parties. In other words: proving the subsequent giving of money or the actual realization of other benefits can only push the moment of conclusion of the criminal conduct further forward (above all for the benefit of the calculation of the limitation period), but the crime is perfectly committed when the set off they agree in the awareness of the reciprocal role played in comedy.
Last consideration: in the agreement between the parties it is always clear what the mafia must do, less clear what the politician must do – especially if elected thanks to the votes of the mafia. The concept of “other utilities” is broad, made even broader by the concept of “availability“Introduced in June 2019: it is certainly up to the sagacity of magistrates and investigators to grasp its significance, declining the abstract and general rule within the concrete and surprising facts one encounters. In conclusion, I allow myself to submit to the public a modest judgment on this last point hypothesis: if the politician who benefits from the electoral agreement was a well-known relative of the well-known mafioso who is active for his electoral campaign, the usefulness consequent to his election would not be demonstrated “in re ipsa”, by the very fact that the surname of the well-known mafia family would receive the coat of arms of an institutional seat? A sort of internal object complement, like “I dreamed a dream”, which translated into the oneiric mafia might sound like: “I dreamed my cousin mayor!”. And maybe it’s not just the plot of a Cetto Laqualunque film.