Magistrates must be impartial, Defence
Minister Guido Crosetto told the Lower House on Friday in
response to a row sparked by his claim that a left-leaning
faction of the judiciary is the only real threat to Italy's
right-centre government.
Crosetto, a member of Premier Giorgia Meloni's right-wing
Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, said earlier this week that he
was happy to report to parliament after drawing criticism by
warning of elements within the judiciary forming "judicial
opposition" to the executive in an interview published in
Corriere della Sera on Sunday.
In the interview, the minister said he had "heard about meetings
of a faction within the judiciary in which they talk about how
to 'stop the anti-democratic drift Meloni is leading us to'".
The interview sparked an angry reaction from Italian magistrates
union ANM, with its president Giuseppe Santalucia accusing
Crosetto of spreading "fake news which has no foundation and
hurts the institutions" and calling on him to "dispel suspicions
and shadows".
Opposition parties also condemned the remarks, with ex-premier
and 5-Star Movement (M5S) leader Giuseppe Conte saying they
amounted to accusing part of the judiciary of being
"subversive".
In his statements to the House Friday, Crosetto said that
magistrates must remain "third parties".
He said: "I shall open a topic that must be discussed sooner or
later: this clash between politics and the judiciary must end".
"I have found that there are some magistrates - I have heard
exponents of the (centre-left) Area movement - who see in the
government an attack on the judiciary, almost as if they do not
want it to do its job," continued Crosetto.
"There are those who have said that the role of the judiciary
must be to counterbalance the will of the people," he added,
referring to remarks made by the Secretary of Magistratura
Democratica, part of the Area movement, Stefano Musolino.
"But those in positions of responsibility must be impartial:
imagine if a general or a prefect had uttered these words," said
the minister.
Crosetto said he trusted magistrates, but that there had been
"very serious interventions" on the part of some allegedly
biased officials against the government.
The minister also accused his critics of "mystifying" his words
by falsely claiming that he had accused the judiciary of staging
secret subversive meetings, and said there had been an
"execution squad" lined up against him.
He said: "There has been an attempt to mystify my words: I am
going to read them again in an Italian that any primary school
child would understand: 'they tell me about meetings of a
faction within the judiciary in which they talk about how to
'stop the anti-democratic drift Meloni is leading us to'".
"Did I say that they tell me about secret meetings, about
conspiracies? No," he concluded.
Magistratura Democratica secretary Musolino, who is also deputy
prosecutor of Reggio Calabria, was quick to respond.
"I believe the minister does not know some of the fundamentals
of our Constitution, and especially the role of guaranteeing the
protection of fundamental rights that the Charter attributes to
the judiciary, which is the reason why it is independent from
other powers," he said.
"It is no coincidence that Crosetto likens us to prefects and
generals, who are people that work with the government on its
programmatic goals, while the function of the judiciary is to
protect fundamental rights even when they are threatened by
contingent majorities," added Musolino.
"Every time governments have tried to reduce and anaesthetise
the function of the guarantee bodies, the rate of democracy has
inevitably been lowered, as has happened in Hungary, Poland and
Turkey," he continued.
"The openness to discussion in respect of respective roles is
the identifying characteristic of Magistratura democratica,"
said Musolino, adding: "This is why we will continue to speak
out on the issue of rights with institutional loyalty and
without being intimidated by attempts to involve us in media
brawls".
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
