The first time in Italia there was talk of a reform to separate the careers of judges and prosecutorsthe intellectual authorship of that was attributed to Licio Gelli. That Maestro Venerablehead of the masonic lodge P2 and convicted of appropriating Italian state secrets in the last third of the 20th century. Gelli had included the proposal in his Democratic Rebirth Plana sort of vademecum for a “soft blow” with which he intended dismantle the state from within. His son, Maurizio, recalled that time in a recent interview, assuring that his father, today, would feel “happy.”
With that echo of the darkest Italy as a backdrop, the Government of Giorgia Meloni faces a referendum this Sunday in which some 45 million resident citizens (plus another 5-6 million abroad) are called to vote on whether they accept – or not – a reform of the judicial power that precisely has, at its core, a redesign of the Superior Council of the Judiciary. This is the equivalent of the General Council of the Judiciary in Spain, and also has the function of guarantee the independence of the Judiciary against the Executive Branch (the Government) and the Legislative Branch (the Parliament).
However, the quote transcends the strictly technical. First of all, the consultation contains a political high voltage: has become a thermometer of the popularity of Giorgia Meloni’s Government, a kind of midterm Italian style. This was evidenced this week by the electoral campaign climate that permeated the country. To such an extent that Meloni herself came to defend her cause in a kind of monologue on a podcast by rapper Fedez. The reason is clear: a defeat would offer his opponents the longed for Achilles heel of a leader who, until now, has shown herself to be practically impregnable at the head of political power in Italy; A victory would allow Meloni to advance almost without brakes with the other controversial reforms promised by his Executive (in the first placethe reform of the electoral law, already deposited, and then also that of the so-called premieredwhich promotes that the country’s prime minister be elected directly by the citizens).
Berlusconi
However, the proposal, a complex artifact approved by Parliament last October, which represents a constitutional change, suffers from the outset misconception (or perhaps marketing?): it is not a reform of justice, but, rather, of the judiciary. It does not seek to stop trials from being that eternal labyrinth where Italian justice usually takes a nap; the speed of the courts, a great endemic evil of the country, is not on the agenda. The issue is, in reality, a radical intervention in the organization of those in Italy who judge (the judges) and those who investigate (the prosecutors), who until now could change from one position to the other throughout their career (although this possibility had already been greatly restricted with a previous reform). With the changes, they will no longer be able to and will also become dependent on two different superior government councils (it was one).
In fact, a central knot is the separation of the self-government body of the judiciary in two independent instances—one for prosecutors and the other for judges—, under an appointment system that has turned on the alarms in broad judicial sectors and which, according to some analyses, will also multiply management costs. Specifically: according to the model proposed by the Meloni Government – if the reform is approved and the action decrees do not substantially modify it -, one third of the ‘lay members’ would be elected through a lucky draw (drawing lots) among those on a list drawn up by Parliament, while the other two thirds of the ‘robed members’ will no longer be chosen by vote among their peers, but always by draw. What a large part of those affected interpret as a blow to their independence, by stripping them of the power to choose among themselves. In addition, the reform also provides for the creation of an external High Disciplinary Court to examine complaints about judicial errors.
Therefore, for a large part of the judicial sector, the measure is not a modernization, but rather a deliberate weakening of their autonomy in the face of political power, which occurs when Meloni has already had several run-ins with the justice system in his country. But not only them. Dozens of people have demonstrated against the reform in Italy. constitutionalists and intellectualswho have called the reform authoritarian and with unimaginable consequences for the democratic order of Italy, in the style of the Hungary but Viktor Orbán or even worse. That is, in a certain way what Silvio Berlusconi, the late magnate and, during his lifetime, a member of the Licio Gelli lodge, also wanted.
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