'Magistrates not against government' says ANM president

(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 21 - The president of judiciary's union, Giuseppe Santalucia, said Monday that magistrates were not against the government but vied to defend the "autonomy and independence" of the judiciary after government members including the justice minister accused judges of "overstepping their powers" when a Rome court nixed the detention of 12 migrants at a new Italian-run hosting centre for migrants in Albania and Premier Giorgia Meloni posted an extract of a prosecutor's email about her, implying members of the judiciary had an agenda against the cabinet.
    "We are not against the government, it would be absurd to think that the judiciary, an institution of the country, is against an institution of the country like political power", Santalucia told Rai3's Agorà program.
    The ANM president went on to say that, "it is not an institutional clash that we are seeking, we tend to defend the autonomy and the independence of the judicial order".
    Late on Sunday, Santalucia also slammed the "malicious" interpretation of a passage of an email written by Cassation Court State Attorney Marco Patarnello, noting it was taken out of context when it was first published by conservative daily Il Tempo on Sunday and then posted by Premier Giorgia Meloni on social media.
    The extract in which Patarnello, a member of left-wing magistrates faction Magistratura Democratica (Democratic Magistrature, MD), said "Meloni has no pending judicial investigations and thus does not act for personal interest but for a political vision and this makes her much stronger, and also much more dangerous in her action", was sparked by "concern over the attacks against a number of judicial offices for the simple fact of deciding according to the law", noted the ANM chief.
    The email, which was reportedly written the day after the Rome court did not validate the detention of migrants in Albania based on a recent European Court of Justice ruling, sparking a political controversy, "only highlighted the need to solve internal divisions to defend the prerogatives of magistrates and the jurisdiction itself".
    "Indulging in other malicious interpretations does not contribute to making the institutional climate more serene", said Santalucia.
    On Sunday, President Sergio Mattarella said "institutions belong and respond to the entire community and everyone must be able to recognize themselves in them".
    Meanwhile on Monday, Deputy Premier and Transport Minister said Patarnello "should not be in his place anymore".
    "If someone has mistaken a tribunal for a social centre and a place of political vengeance they have chosen the wrong job, quite simply", he said. (ANSA).