ROME (ITALPRESS) – The clash between politics and the judiciary does not abate. In a lengthy document, the Central Executive Committee of the National Association of Magistrates stigmatizes, among other things, “the attack on jurisdiction instrumental to discredit the judiciary in order to prepare the ground for reforms that tend to subject to politics the control of legality entrusted by the Constitution to the judiciary.” Narrowly, the League and Forza Italia responded by asking the ANM to be self-critical.
“In the last period we have witnessed from a certain politician to increasingly frequent attacks on measures rendered by Italian magistrates in the exercise of their jurisdictional functions, criticized not for their technical-legal content, but because they are disagreeable to the political direction of the governmental majority,” the document of the Central Steering Committee of the ANM begins. It aprioristically alleges the political matrix of the decisions, claiming that the magistrates who adopted them would be more intent on politics than on performing their role as judges impartially. This is an attack on jurisdiction instrumental in discrediting the judiciary in order to prepare the ground for reforms that tend to subject to politics the constitutionally entrusted control of legality to the judiciary.”
“It is the prerogative of the jurisdiction to interpret laws, taking into account the hierarchy of values expressed by the Constitutional Charter including the principles of primacy of European law and separation of powers,” the ANM further says. These attacks have been followed by operations of undue reconstruction of the private lives of magistrates who are the authors of those decisions aimed at selecting and making public personal choices deemed to be related to the measures adopted. The media lynching to which a certain journalism has lent itself has affected judges and their natural tension to decide free from their own convictions and passions: scrutinizing people’s lives, reporting their intimate affairs, completely devoid of public relevance, is conduct not in line with journalistic ethics.” “Freedom of manifestation of thought also belongs to the magistrate as a citizen, who exercises it, including in public debate, with a sense of responsibility and respect for the high judicial function performed. To claim, without any basis, that a magistrate has taken a measure to pursue purposes other than those proper to the exercise of jurisdiction is a serious accusation that can no longer be tolerated, as it undermines the fundamental rights of the individual magistrates involved and of the jurisdiction: delegitimizing the judiciary is an operation that harms the country’s democratic hold,” the ANM document further says.
For these reasons, the ANM’s Central Steering Committee believes “due to the seriousness of the moment, it must take appropriate initiatives and therefore calls on every political actor to respect the constitutional principle of the separation of powers and the autonomy and independence of the jurisdictional order; resolves to transmit a copy of this resolution to the CSM for the evaluations of the autonomous governing body and for the consequent initiatives to protect the independence and autonomy of the judiciary; orders to transmit a copy of this resolution to the National Council of the Order of Journalists.”
“Let us reassure the Anm: to discredit the judiciary, all it takes is the judiciary that blocks deportations of illegal immigrant offenders, frees drug dealers by mistake, goes to the streets against the government, and calls for jail time for Matteo Salvini because “he is right but should be attacked.” To reverse the trend, it would be enough to start with the most trivial things. For example: less conventions and more work,” the League says in a note, while for Forza Italia deputy Enrico Costa “the ANM in its long whining today forgets the strikes proclaimed against norms being approved by parliament, as well as the slew of interviews of magistrates with apex roles that qualified laws under discussion or approved as favors to crime. To do half a self-criticism there is always time.”
– Photo Agency Photogram –
(ITALPRESS).
