Giglio Reduzzi
Justice, Italian -Style Giustizia all’italiana
Youcanprint.it Edizioni
Giglio Reduzzi
Justice, Italian -Style Giustizia all’italiana
Edizioni Youcanprint.it
Copyright © 2011 YOUCANPRINT EDIZIONI Via roma 73 - 73039 Tricase (LE) Tel. /Fax 0833.772652 info@youcanprint.it www.youcanprint.it
ISBN: 9788866183884 Prima edizione digitale 2011 Questo eBook non potrà formare oggetto di scambio, commercio, prestito e rivendita e non potrà essere in alcun modo diffuso senza il previo consenso scritto dell’editore. Qualsiasi distribuzione o fruizione non autorizzata costituisce violazione dei diritti dell’editore e dell’autore e sarà sanzionata civilmente e penalmente secondo quanto previsto dalla legge 633/1941
English version...........................................pag. 5
Versione italiana......................................pag. 51
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Index of English version
I.
Every day Justice
7
II.
Justice Berlusconi -Style
13
III. The Need for Reform
17
IV.
Berlusconi’s new indictments
21
V.
Present Structure
25
VI.
Berlusconi’s pros
31
VII.
Political exploitation of Charges
37
Appendix: the Marchionne case Books by same author Thanks
43
47 49
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I. Every day Justice Felipe Fernandez-Armesto. Who is this man (to use Manzoni’s expression)? He is a university teacher who, while in Atlanta, Georgia, to attend an academic convention, dared to cross the street outside the pedestrian crossing, thus committing the crime of “jaywalking”. Policemen jumped on him, laid him on the ground, cuffed him and took him away. If you do not believe in this story, just enter the name of the gentleman in Google and read. And it is quite plausible that you may not believe it, given that this rigor contrasts sharply with the laxism that characterizes certain Italian cities, where, to be stopped, it is not enough to be caught while driving a moped double, the wrong way and without a helmet. Namely committing three crimes in one go. Not counting that, if the man were stopped, he might be found guilty of having stolen the moped and using it to snatch bags, in addition to not having the driver’s permit, having not paid the annual tax and being uninsured.
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OK: this may be an extreme case, but, personally, I prefer rigor to laxism. In the USA, when a Stock Broker commits a crime, after a few weeks you see him walking between two policemen, wearing yellow overalls and two sets of chains (wrists and ankles). In Italy, who ever saw Calisto Tanzi behind bars? Yet he seems to have ruined thousands of people. In our Country even those who plead guilty are not kept in jail. Actually, if they accept the charge, they are considered good persons and let free on early parole. Much noise (and rightly so)was made of the case of that young guy who, imprisoned for attempting to kill his girlfriend, was let free for good conduct and used that opportunity.......to finish the job. Equally sensational (and here too it could not have been otherwise) was the case of the notorious gangster who, though sentenced to jail, was let out because the judge forgot to file the sentence before the legal deadline, however remote that was. What raises public anger in both of these cases is that the judges responsible for these actions, far from being punished, will face no sanction in their professional careers. In fact, the
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colleagues called to evaluate their performance will have no problem finding suitable justification. For instance, in the former case, they will say that the judge, by assigning house arrest to the guy who abused it in order to kill his fiancè, did nothing but apply the law. Which, from a technical point of view, might well be the case, but
would make one wonder whether a judge ought not
examine the applicability of the law to the matter in question, rather than confining himself to applying it. My view is that, without this interpretative effort, a judge could be easily and more economically replaced by an automatic sentence distributor. You put in a ticket with all needed data and you get it back with the sentence written on. Faced with these episodes , it is outrageous that the Brazilian President, Lula da Silva, has denied the extradition of Cesare Battisti due to the fact that the Italian prison system is more rigorous than the Brazialian one. If only it were so! Then, there are the many cases where it is not just the filing of the sentece that is late in coming, but the sentence itself. I am referring to all the innumerable episodes of excessive duration of trials, for which Italy holds the record in Europe.......... islands included.
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Even Italy’s Supreme Court has recognized that, in the course of 2010, the European Court of Human Rights had issued 475 sentences against Italy for excessive duration of trials. Actually, the situation is not that bad. It is worse. The truth is as follows: Up until about ten years ago, if a person thought that he or she had been penalized by too long a trial, he/she would download a form from the Internet in the Italian language, fill it out by himself/herself, i.e. without the help of a lawyer, send it to Strasbourg and, after a few weeks, the Italian government would receive the order to provide compensation. It was not big money, but the person got immense moral satisfaction out of it. Then the Pinto Act came, by which the Italian government (tired of its exposure to international mockery) decided that, before resorting to Strasbourg, a citizen that felt mistreated by an Italian tribunal should first file an internal claim. It is obvious that a rule of this type (one of the last of the center-left government that resigned in 2001) could only result in a great coverup. For the following reasons: First, because it is highly improbable that a judge called to examine any claim would find something wrong with the colleague he is having his morning coffee with.
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