“Assault prosecutors accompanied to the exit”: the Florence prosecutor’s office asks the CSM to be protected after an article in the Foglio

The Florence prosecutor’s office had been defined as a “crazy spinning top of Italian justice” for “its show investigations”. An article published in Il Foglio on April 13th thus provoked the reaction and criticism of the chief prosecutor of the Tuscan capital Filippo Spiezia and of the National Association of Magistrates. Spiezia asked the CSM to open […]

There prosecutor’s office of Florence had been defined as “crazy spinning top of Italian justice” for “its investigations show“. An article published on The paper last April 13th thus provoked the reaction and criticism of the chief prosecutor of the Tuscan capital Filippo Spiezia and of theNational Association of Magistrates. Spiezia asked the CSM to open a case to protect your office for an article which, he underlines, “has caused serious damage to the prestige of the prosecutor’s office from Florence”. “Deep concern” for “the escalation of violent attacks which the judicial system is subjected to on a daily basis by certain media”, was instead expressed in a note by the Tuscan executive council of the ANM.

At the center of the magistrates’ criticism is the article entitled “The Florence prosecutor’s office loses its people assault pm. Thanks also to the CSM.” The newspaper directed by Claudio Cerasa referred to the deputy prosecutor in Florence Luca Tescarolielected unanimously by the CSM plenum to lead the Prosecutor’s Office of Prato: with him, we read, “a piece of the history of Florentine justice goes away, the most recent one and conspiracy theorist“, citing the investigations (defined as “more surreal of recent decades”) towards Silvio Berlusconi And Marcello Dell’Utriaccused of being the external instigators of the Cosa Nostra massacres of 1993. A reference also to the prosecutor’s upcoming retirement Luca Turcodefined in the article “magistrate of the Renzi family” for, we read in the text, his “judicial fury which in recent years has concerned Matteo Renzi and then extended to his entire family”. Thanking the CSM for “the ability to seize the opportunity every time ‘to accompany you to the exit’ the Florentine prosecutors under attack”, the article de The paper it ended with a reflection: “One wonders how the Florentine prosecutor’s office will be able to recover from these rubble of law“.

Chief Prosecutor Filippo Spiezia therefore turned to the Superior Council of the Judiciary to protect the Office from “unfoundedness of some passages of the article” which “result in one unacceptable and dangerous delegitimization of the work of the magistrates of the Office when they are defined as ‘assault prosecutors’ who, as a result of the measures adopted by the CSM, would have been accompanied “to the exit”. “In this way – we read in the request – I come overturned the purposes of recent decisions” of the CSM for the “transfer from high judicial positions, upon their request, of magistrates already performing the functions of deputy prosecutor at the Florence prosecutor’s office”. In the article “the information distortion reaches absolutely discrediting levels for the judicial function and for the magistrate, where the deputy prosecutor Luca Turco is defined as ‘magistrate of the Renzi family'”. According to prosecutor Spiezia “the communicative message that transpires from the press article is that of a alleged persecutory intent by the prosecutors of the Florence Prosecutor’s Office against some suspects in the face, instead, of the duty of judicial investigations carried out and the professional rigor demonstrated, both in simple investigations and in complex and delicate ones for the complete realization of the principle of equality of citizens before the law and of the subjection of judges only to the law”. The content of the article, concludes Spiezia “goes beyond the exercise of the right of criticismresponsible and informed from which to draw inspiration for improvements in the judicial system and the Office to overflow into gratuitous denigration“.

The ANM Tuscany – after having expressed “deep concern” for “the escalation of violent attacks” – expresses “full solidarity” to colleagues and “a strong condemnation for behaviors which, given that the right to journalistic criticism is firm and intangible, appear above all aimed at further eroding, day after day, citizens’ trust in the work of the judiciary, a safeguard for the effectiveness of rights in every legal system democratic”. “The public prosecutor’s office of Florence – we read in the press release from Anm Toscana – has been in the eye of the storm for some time, guilty of having conducted investigations which involved excellent suspects or defendants, and for this reason the subject of accusations aimed both at the judicial office, its leaders, and at its individual members. Attacks that do not target the merits of judicial matters, as would certainly be legitimate, but individual magistrates and their personal and professional choices.” “The dutiful official activity of the Florentine magistrates – concludes the note – is speciously read from the perspective of ‘political strategy’ and even the choices of the CSM do not escape this plan, artfully constructed by the author of the article”.