The audience at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo gave the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella a very warm welcome. Ovation and minutes of applause in the room for the Head of State who arrived on the occasion of the 36th congress of the National Association of Magistrates entitled “Judiciary and law between impartiality and interpretation”. Even outside the building, the arrival of the head of state was greeted by applause from passers-by. Mattarella responded to the citizens’ call with a greeting. Welcoming the president at the entrance were the president of the Senate Ignazio La Russa, the president of the Sicily Region Renato Schifani, the mayor of Palermo Roberto Lagalla, the president of the Ars Gaetano Galvagno and the prefect of Palermo Massimo Mariani.
The president of the National Association of Magistrates
On the occasion of the 36th congress of the National Magistrates Association underway at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, the president of Anm Giuseppe Santalucia explained: “On several occasions we see a push towards the restrictive redefinition of the boundaries within which jurisdiction can express itself and can make use of the tools of his action. The idea underlying most criticisms is that it has progressively increased its role, ending up being, instead of a factor of stabilization and orderly resolution of conflicts, the cause or contributory cause of that instability and precariousness of necessary balances that mark society in the present time”. Santalucia then denounced “the fear of a progressive weakening of the cultural safeguards which should inhibit the demand of government majorities that decisions of courts and tribunals do not conflict with or even adapt to their programs and purposes”. And he recalled the criticisms expressed by “exponents of the Government majority towards a magistrate of the Court of Catania who, in not validating the detention measures of some migrants, considered the provisions of a decree law not compliant with European Union law” “Please note”, he added, “not a criticism of the provision, but a polemic against the magistrate, accused of not being impartial due to her participation, several years earlier, in a protest demonstration against Government decisions, an expression of other political majorities, which had prevented the ship (with many migrants rescued at sea on board) from landing in the Catania port”. There was also a clarification on the question of the separation of the careers of magistrates: “The project of separation of careers, carried forward with obstinacy even after the separation of functions had been expanded to the extreme, carries with it the seed of the weakening of jurisdiction, at least the criminal one”. The president then added: “The Constitution is being manipulated by showing that it has not understood the meaning of maximum guarantee for the rights of the citizens of the current system, of a public prosecutor belonging to the same order as the judge and similar to the judge in terms of training and culture of function”. “The constitutional message, which we would now like to throw away – he continued – is that in our Republic even the investigating judiciary is not and cannot be a judiciary of purpose; that it shares with the judging judiciary the same disinterest in the outcome of the case action and process, an indispensable premise for not remaining indifferent to people’s rights and guarantees”. Finally, Santalucia concluded his speech by explaining: “I hope that a broad reflection, which involves first of all the relationship with the other powers of the State, does not attract on the congress the worn-out criticism of politicization, which is punctually renewed when the voice and the action of the National Association of Magistrates aims to go beyond the scope, albeit noble, of the defense of clerical interests.
|
