Justice in Italy: prosecutors-media-politics relationship

bnoise (54)in #politics • 7 years ago

There are so many wrong things with justice in my country.

My biggest concerns are:

Civil Justice is so slow it ruins economy on every level (big and small business, individuals).
Criminal Justice is making innocent people suffering in over-populated jail for years, abusing pre-trial detention (there's no bail in Italy).
Judiciary and political power are not paying any kind of price for this huge failures, and they are not willing to truly reform.

While solutions for these issues could be addressed from many angles, I think these problems are very real no matter your political views.

For me it would be interesting to compare italian justice to USA courts, because I don't know much about USA justice - just something from movies and tv-shows. If you are from USA, it's important to know that prosecutors in Italy are not elected, they just passed a public examination, and their careers and incomes increase with their age, not with results.

However, in this post I wanna talk about something else, a dangerous mentality which is spread in prosecutors, politicians, mass media and simple citizens.

Handcuffed_hands_(line_drawing).jpg

If you're investigated, you're guilty, but your trial hasn't started yet.
If you're arrested, you're guilty and dangerous.
If you're prescribed, you're guilty, you just have good lawyers abusing the system.
If you're absolved, you're guilty, you're just getting away for some kind of error.

This way of thinking is called giustizialismo in the political debate, as opposed to garantismo, the constitutional principle that everybody should be considered innocent, until the end of the trial(s).

Targets

Politicians are main targets for giustizialismo.
Prosecutors looking for glory would be better attack a politician instead of the average Joe.
Media get excited when this happens, because they can finally have something to say with little effort, using as many details from the case as they need.
And, of course, this is working because public opinion already hates politicians and elites, which are perceived as useless, incompetent and overpaid. Of course a corrupted politician is even worse! But media or courts doesn't need to prove corruption, rage will rise without proof because with giustizialismo every doubt becomes certainty.
What about political opposition? Let's brutally summarize: populist parties are giustizialisti and they're gonna attack the target full-on, while traditional parties are more garantisti and they're gonna say something like "let the court decide if he's guilty of innocent of a crime, however this is politically compromising and he should resign".

Also simple citizens or individuals can be victims of giustizialismo, the more serious the crime they're being investigated / prosecuted for. Small crime: you find your name in local newspaper, local public opinion judge you as guilty, you can move in another town to start a new life. Big crime: your name keeps going in national TV news, in talk shows that morbidly reconstruct the crime scene in every detail. Even if you're judged innocent, your name will be linked to a brutal crime for many years (trials are slow), or forever (big crime = big news for a long time; acquittal verdict = very little news for one day).
Political game usually is not touching simple citizens, but it can happen, e.g. if they're immigrants. There are higher percentages of pre-trials detentions compared to politicians, and usually lawyer fees are much bigger trouble for the average Joe.

How does it work into practice

As example, let's focus on politicians suspected of corruption or other crimes, because that's where every wrong element can be present.

Prosecutors leak confidential information to newspapers or other mass media. For example, a list of investigated politicians or people related to them, or a piece of wiretapping of a compromising phone call. In the italian legislation, this is legal or illegal depending on the content of the leak, but NEVER a prosecutor has being charged of leaking secret information - while everybody knows that media takes leaks from judiciary power.
So media knows you're investigated before you know about it or receive notice of investigation. Media get pieces of wiretapping or other reports before your lawyer. You know you're in trouble at the same time public opinion knows.

You get some kind of public trial on mass media, waiting for the real trial (which could take no place at all). Media are receiving news and leaks with a very suspect timing, that's why people like me are pretty sure about this judiciary conspiracy. To maximize media coverage, leaks are provided a bit at a time. This way newscast and newspapers can speak about your investigation day after day, without exact repetition of charges and "evidences" (always something new to speak about). In politics timing is a big element to shape public opinion: for example, there were several cases of investigations revelead in electoral campaign or after a ministry nomination. That could hardly be a coincidence, because investigations usually take years to be done.

The investigated politician has a choice: fight without resign, using a lot of his time and energy to defend himself in public debate / TV, or resign and stay low profile for a while, eventually defend himself in courts.

He also have to consider that resign could be best interest for his institution and/or party, but he can appear guilty and while the word suspected will always be in newspapers headlines, the word innocent will eventually come after many years in a small box at page 12.

Birth

Giustizialismo is born with political corruption, which is very real in my country.
But I think even really horrible persons deserve a fair trial (how do you know he's guilty before trial?).

I was just a little kid in early 1990s when tangentopoli (bribe-gate, illegal funding of parties) killed the two main government parties (DC and PSI) with lots of arrests. Don't get me wrong, corruption was very real, but lots of people had their life and their careers ruined, and got innocent verdict after a long time. In Italy there's no bail, and pre-trial detention was used as torture to make suspects talk.

Someone thinks prosecutors were executing CIA orders. I think this is conspiracy theory with little proof and some incoherences, maybe one day truth will come out. What is true is that illegal funding was going on since long time, and prosecutor did nothing until the fall of Berlin wall and URSS. The main opposition party (PCI Italian Communist Party) was barely touched by arrests and trials, and changed name in the same years (1991-1992) to Democratic Left Party (PDS), preparing to turn into a governing party.

Antonio Di Pietro, one of main prosecutors, became a celebrity and later a political leader of his own party (Italia dei Valori).
This is a really bad issue of my democracy, and happened a lot of times.

Another notable example is Luigi De Magistris, main prosecutor of Why Not investigation, that touched the secretary of Justice (Clemente Mastella) and his wife. That helped the fall of Romano Prodi's second government (2006-2008). Later, the investigation was dismissed (no indictment), but De Magistris used the fame acquired in TV shows to be elected, and it's currently the Naples mayor.

Antonio Ingroia and Michele Emiliano are others well known prosecutors who targeted politicians, to later become politicians themselves.
Ingroia had no success as politician with is own Civil Revolution party, and turned lawyer.
Emiliano instead became Bari mayor, Puglia governor, and now is fighting for national secretary of Democratic Party (PD), the main governing party from 2013.

A prosecutor should be unaligned but also appear unaligned.

Damages to democracy

Separation of powers is a classical liberalism principle that is / should-be applied to many western democracies. Depending on your views, this separation may lead or should lead to conflicts between powers.
What is happening in Italy is that Judiciary power won the war with politics since a long time.

politica vs magistratura.png

This translates in little chances for politics to reform Justice, which has a lot of issues for the country in general, as I mentioned in the beninning of the post. We're talking of the most powerful and untouchable guild in Italy, always trying to maintain the status quo.

Some say the problems of Justice are useful for politicians, this could be true because long trials make difficult to give precise responsability for public scandals.

At the same time, if you really want to reform Justice, you just made a powerful enemy in the State, so don't think it would be easy.

And now, the icing on the cake. Prosecutors and judges are organized in political factions inside judiciary trade union (Associazione Nazionale Magistrati), in broad daylight. Simplifying: Democratic Judiciary (Magistratura Democratica) is left-wing, and Independent Judiciary (Magistratura Indipendente) is right-wing. I can't even comment on this, it's too much for me.