Nordio says we celebrate 25 April but still fascist code (5)

(ANSA) - ROME, APR 23 - Justice Minister Carlo Nordio said Tuesday that Italy celebrated Liberation Day on April 25 marking the country's liberation from Nazi-fascism but paradoxically Italy was still largely ruled by the fascist code of law signed by Benito Mussolini and the then king while a reformed code named after late Socialist justice minister and Resistance hero Giuliano Vassalli had been demolished.
    "I would like to remind you that our penal code, although partly reformed, is the one signed by Benito Mussolini and Vittorio Emanuele III," Nordio told a justice conference organised in the capital at the University of Roma Tre.
    "It is a Fascist code, albeit a very well-written one.
    "We will soon be celebrating Liberation Day, a holiday that celebrates anti-fascism, but we must remember that we still have a code signed by Mussolini and Vittorio Emanuele III, which by the way is in good health, while a code named after a Resistance hero like Vassalli has been demolished and misinterpreted, another paradox of our State".
    Vassalli (1915-2009) was justice minister from 1987 until 1991, in which time the 'Vassalli Code" reforming criminal proceedings was enacted.
    It was later often ignored in practice.
    During the Roman Rsistance in WWII, he organised the escape of future presidents Giuseppe Saragat and Sandro Pertini from Rome's Regina Coeli Prison. (ANSA).