April 30, 2024 at 4:11 pm
No showdown, but discontent and divisions still very present this morning at the meeting of the Reggio Emilia Bar Association. That in the end you did what you were called upon to do on the agenda – that is, approve the budget – but with a record participation that is unlikely to be recorded in the future. In fact, over 300 lawyers went to the meeting this morning, Tuesday, so much so that it was necessary to move to the Assize Court room. A participation linked not so much to the Order’s reporting, but to controversy aroused on the eve of April 25th from the appeal to “free ourselves from anti-fascism” launched by president Enrico Della Capanna commenting on a post by the centre-right mayoral candidate (and vice-president of the Order) Giovanni Tarquini.
An appeal that sparked protests from many lawyers: 47 of them had signed a letter the following day to define Della Capanna’s behavior as “incompatible with the role of president of the Bar Association of Reggio Emilia, city of the Tricolore and medal of gold of the Resistance”, another thirty were added in the following days. But for the Order to address the problem, it will need a few more: to bring the matter to the attention of the Council, 10% of the approximately 1,200 members need to ask for it.
Meanwhile, this morning too, the discontent of the lawyers who do not want to free themselves from anti-fascism was brought to the meeting by a young woman, Evelina Carri, one of the signatories of the letter.
The storm was triggered by the sentence pronounced on the eve of April 25th in a Facebook comment on the page of the centre-right mayoral candidate, the lawyer Giovanni Tarquini, by the lawyer Della Capanna: «We freed ourselves from fascism in 1945, but in 2024 we have not yet freed ourselves from anti-fascism.” A statement that divided Reggio’s lawyers between those who interpreted Della Capanna’s thought as a genuine personal stance, recklessly entrusted to social media, and colleagues on the left, who did not appreciate the explicit support for the centre-right mayoral candidate (as well as vice-president of the Order) Giovanni Tarquini and did not feel represented by an institutional figure who should not enter the active political arena. Hence the letter of no confidence, signed by 47 left-wing lawyers, who became seventy in the following days.
