12 May 2007

No throwing in the sponge on Bankrupts

Today the Council of Ministers, at my request, has not examined the draft law for the reform of penalties for bankruptcy.
It is a draft law to which I am firmly opposed as far as it has the reduction of the maximum penalty for certain crimes like fraudulent bankruptcy.
It would be really serious to reduce the sentences because that would mean an automatic shortening of the terms of the prescrizione {time frame for delivering judgement}.
The effect would be that trials relating to scandals like that of Cirio and Parmalat would almost certainly not take place.
This is a result that we cannot allow ourselves. Italia dei Valori wants to give back to the citizens a just, efficient and credible justice system and I will never vote for discounts on the sentences for bankrupts who have ruined thousands of families.
This is why I have formally requested the elimination of that part of the draft law that sets out lower maximum sentences than those currently in existence
The time that we have available before the text is examined by the Council of Ministers must be used to change this so that automatic “time-outs” can be avoided.
If this doesn’t happen I will express my opposition to its approval.
As well as that, there is still the problem of false accounting that was decriminalized by the previous government.
In this case as well, I have placed a formal request to the law offices in Palazzo Chigi that the draft law should have provision for restoring the regulations that punish false accounting as a crime that can be investigated automatically and with adequate sanctions and time limits.

Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Justice