«If a High Court is created to judge magistrates – says Antonio Leone – it should be done well, with an intervention at the root, leaving the magistrates themselves out: otherwise we will continue as always to do things in the family, and to decide the fate of those who have done something dirty will continue to be the colleague next door. The image that will continue to be sent to the country will be that of a category that wants to be accountable only to itself, and that uses the screen of independence to guarantee itself immunity and impunity.”
Leone knows the matter well because for four years, from 2014 to 2018, he was part of the Superior Council of the Judiciary as a lay member. He was also part of the disciplinary section, and often – in the absence of vice-president Legnini – he directed its sessions: “Eighty percent of the total, at a guess.” In the four years, all sorts of things have happened before him, he has “put on trial” lazy, arrogant, half-crazy magistrates, seeing first-hand how the CSM carries out the disciplinary function assigned to it by the Constitution.
The national association of magistrates says that the disciplinary section works very well, and that the High Court is useless and dangerous.
«I think the first to talk about the High Court was Luciano Violante, who is a former magistrate… However, do you want to know how the disciplinary works? There are six members, four are magistrates, two are lay people elected by Parliament: therefore the magistrates always have an absolute majority.”
What is the consequence?
«An excess of do-goodism towards violations of all kinds committed both at work and in private life. I think that a magistrate, due to the role and function he holds, should be judged more severely than any citizen, because he has greater duties of probity. Instead, the opposite happens there, the constant practice is indulgence. When the sanctions arrive they are ridiculous, the punishment has nothing to do with the violation, slaps such as censorship arrive which have no impact on one’s career or consideration, because they are not made known. If you try to ask the CSM for the name of a magistrate punished because he was found doing strange things in public bathrooms, you will come across a kind of state secret.”
Would moving disciplinary jurisdiction to a High Court change things?
«It depends on how this Court is appointed, on what competences it has… The news circulating in recent days is very vague, there is talk of a bandwagon that would have jurisdiction over all the judiciaries, which would also deal with appeals against the appointments of the heads of judicial offices. Instead, a streamlined High Court would be needed, made up of lawyers and university professors who dedicate themselves solely to the disciplinary evaluation of magistrates. And we need a new law that effectively indicates the disciplinary offenses for which a magistrate can be held accountable.
Today a magistrate can get away with something that is clearly a serious crime but is not specifically indicated in the list.”
