Vincenzo De Luca, the candidate
for Premier Matteo Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party (PD) in
Sunday's regional elections in Campania, said Thursday that a
ruling this week by the supreme court does not mean that he will
be suspended if he wins.
In a decision registered on Thursday, the supreme Court of
Cassation said ordinary courts, not administrative courts, must
rule on cases concerning a 2012 anti-corruption law - the
so-called Severino law - banning from public office people
convicted of certain crimes.
Some experts believed this would have implications for De
Luca, who was convicted in January this year of abuse of office
in connection with an incinerator project while he was mayor of
the city of Salerno, and handed a suspended sentence of a year
in prison plus a one-year ban from holding public office.
As a result of the conviction, he was also suspended from
holding public office for 18 months under the Severino law - but
the Campania Regional Administrative Tribunal (TAR) reinstated
him three days later.
"The problem of the Severino law has been overcome because
the law is not applicable to those who are elected for the first
time," De Luca said at a forum hosted by Naples-based daily
Corriere del Mezzogiorno.
"So I won't be suspended".
Opposition parties disagreed.
Both Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party and the
rightwing Northern League said "De Luca should never have been a
candidate in the first place".
They claimed he was just as "unpresentable" as the
candidates that will be revealed to have had links to organised
crime when the anti-mafia commission unveils its long-awaited
list on Friday.
The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement said the other
parties should have avoided potential problems altogether by
enforcing a similar ethical code as they have, which rules out
anyone with any kind of problem with the law.
Even an ally of Renzi and De Luca's, the leftwing Left,
Ecology and Freedom (SEL) party, said "the PD should have
thought this through beforehand.
"Campania risks not having a governor," it said.
The Italian press is speculating that Renzi has a
contingency plan up his sleeve, a deputy governor who will be
able to step in immediately if De Luca is declared inadmissible
for office.
Italian anti-corruption czar Raffaele Cantone poured scorn
on vetting of politicians' honesty by the parliamentary
anti-Mafia commission, saying such bills of moral health are "a
political choice".
Cantone said he is "rather baffled" that "politics makes a
judgement on who is presentable and who is not".
"A blue stamp even if issued by a very authoritative body
presided over by a person beyond any suspicion is still a
political view," he said.
Cantone also commented on the Cassation Court ruling,
saying "I think that the Severino law is clear, when and if
mayor De Luca is elected the premier will make his own
evaluation".
Cantone said that the ruling by the Cassation Court
included "an affirmation on the competence of the ordinary judge
that seemed to me to go without saying".
PD heavyweight, Reform Minister Maria Elena Boschi said
the Cassation Court ruling "changes nothing, substantively" and
"we will respect the law if De Luca wins".
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