“There is no boundary line between the judiciary and politics. Let’s take Minister Nordio’s reform, there has been a lot of talk about it and now where has it ended up?”
“Crosetto is a citizen and not just a politician and he legitimately expressed a concern. He questioned the role that the Judiciary plays in this country when faced with political positions”, he states to Affaritaliani.it Luca Palamara, former prosecutor and former president of the National Magistrates Association. “All this has always happened, the citizen rightly wonders who he will be judged by. By a third, impartial, or politicized judge? For thirty years, rightly or wrongly, the Judiciary has played an opposition role when there is a government the Centre-right. Let’s take the latest example of the migrant decree which was ignored until all that happened in many years in Silvio Berlusconi. In a normal world we would be faced with competing opinions, in Italy it is war. Just think of what the ANM did with Bruti Liberati between 2001 and 2006 during my period with Berlusconi and then with Matteo Renzi. In fact, it was a political opposition. The only exception of a strong intervention with the centre-left in government was when Prodi was prime minister and Mastella was minister”.
Can we expect an attack by the Judiciary on the government, perhaps to bring it down, before the European elections on 9 June 2024? “I obviously don’t know the facts on the merits, but I can say that in the past the climate around the investigations carried out by the Judiciary fuels the exploitation of investigations involving politicians. It has been like this since 1992. And it has happened that criminal investigations in this country are used to eliminate the politician of the moment. But then it is the task of politics to enhance that part of the Judiciary which is no longer found in this scheme, otherwise we will end up always talking about the same things”. Palamara then underlines that “even in the Judiciary, many want to get rid of this continuous conflict with politics, but there is a lack of a central, moderate area, and we are always in a clash between extremes”.
Returning to politics… “I repeat, I have no news, but given past experiences it has always happened that in the vicinity of elections investigations are triggered in an almost physiological way which are then exploited by the relevant press to target one or more unwelcome politicians. All this happens because there is no line of the border between the judiciary and politics. Let’s take Minister Nordio’s reform, there has been a lot of talk about it and now where has it ended up?”.
Is Crosetto right then? “He is a citizen and not just a minister. He expressed an opinion. Because as I said, if in a conference of magistrates there is talk of anti-democratic drift and actions to be implemented against the government, one can legitimately ask oneself how then any investigations regarding that political party will take place. And how they will be supported by the relevant press – I am thinking of Corriere della Sera, Repubblica, La Stampa, Il Fatto Quotidiano and also Il Domani – which mutually feed each other with part of the Judiciary…”.
But should we expect something big before the European Championships? Government at risk? “Looking at what has happened in the past, including the Morisi case, the 9 June elections for the European Parliament may fuel the fears expressed by Crosetto”, concludes Palamara.
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