23 October 2007

Before it’s too late

Text:
“Today we have to do some important and sensitive reflecting on our country’s State based on the rule of law and on the democratic position of our country.
We have to do it because once more today’s newspapers are making out that it’s bickering between Di Pietro and Mastella; a political issue that I have raised and that with rash indecency, my colleague is trying to overturn by covering me with insults and abuse.
Before we start, Mastella is getting cross with me saying that I have done who knows what that is barely transparent in my past life. On the facts that relate to me, it’s good to repeat once more that even though I was put under investigation, I resigned, first as a magistrate and then as a minister and I presented myself to my judge to be judged. The judge acquitted me and those who accused me, he convicted of defamation and calumny. This is my personal story. It is finished. There’s no more to say on that.
This is not the issue, even if it were the devil in the situation, the issue is the Catanzaro investigation being carried out against a political class and the reaction to this action to remove the investigation from the hands of that judge. We have to give a response to this question.
What are we talking about? It happened that in the last few months, a judge who up until that moment was hardly known, has put together an investigation called “Poseidone” relating to payments, even European, financing that is not transparent and relationships between politics and business.
In this investigation a Forza Italia parliamentarian called Pittelli was involved as well as even people who were close to the Chief Prosecutor of Catanzaro. Well in a nut shell, this investigation was removed from the hands of the judge responsible for it.
Mean while, the same judge set up the “Why not” investigation and that too was in relation to public contributions and “short cuts” to purchase these funds and for giving and receiving favours.
In the course of this investigation, finishing up under investigation were the President of the Council, Romano Prodi and the Minister of Justice, Clemente Mastella.
I don’t think there is anything that requires a greater duty than when a magistrate is investigating important politicians, to allow the magistrate to go ahead and do his job.
However a transfer procedure was activated for him by the very same Minister of Justice. The image that comes out is that of a caste that does not want to be judged, that a power that rejects the State based on the rule of law and the law that is equal for everyone, of a magistracy that is delegitimised each time it tries to do its duty. Was this not Berlusconi’s policy?
Was this not the reason why we asked the Italians to vote for us? To do a judicial policy that is the complete opposite of this? We started off with the Great Pardon and we finish up with the delegitimisation of the magistrates.
They will say that it’s all OK, in accordance with the law. Yes, it’s all OK. It was Morvillo, the brother-in-law of Falcone who said that the guilt of the attack on the judge was of the “professionals of all the documents are in order”.
Professionals who put in place acts that surely could be put in place, but that all together kill the State based on the rule of law and at times, people like Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Destabilisation, isolation, delegitimisation lead to this.
I have asked something of the President of the Council, of the Council of Ministers, of Parliament. I have asked it as a serving Minister and as the Leader of a Party that is keeping this majority on its feet: to ask one self what kind of judicial policy we want to have in this country. Do we want to have a public and transparent discussion rather than these sudden actions that end up being blows to the State based on the rule of law, even if they are not true coup d’états.
I want to bring to the attention the need for the reform of the criminal process: few crimes but with the penalty assured. A reform of the criminal procedures: the verdict must be arrived at in a third of the time that it is today. A financial reform of the office structures: grouping together of the judicial areas, computerized management of the procedures, of the on going positions, of the judicial chancellery, of the relationships between the police and the magistracy. A structure that allows the Justice System to function better.
This has not been discussed neither by the previous government nor by the present one. Italia dei Valori asks that attention should be given on these issues before it’s too late and that is why we have decided to launch a national campaign of information from the end of this week, with a demonstration to ask if a the State based on the Rule of Law is finished, to discuss once and for all on the people entitled, capable and willing to carry out a new judicial policy for this Country.
I want to know if the Minister of Justice wants this new policy or if he is reduced to be a "long hand" that wants to block investigations.
This weekend we call everyone for a demonstration in defense of Justice, for a State based on the Rule of Law and against the barbaric procedure of prevarication against judges who do their duty.
Before it is too late. Before "professionals of papers in order" becomes guilty of some heavy-handed in order puts the life of a magistrate.

Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Justice