Constitutional changes in judicial reform unprecedented-ANM

(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 20 - The secretary general of the judiciary's union, the National Association of Magistrates (ANM), said Monday that a planned government reform to separate the career paths of judges and prosecutors so they can no longer switch between the two would radically change the Constitution by altering the relationship between the State's powers, laying the ground for a possible political influence over judicial power.
    ANM Secretary General Salvatore Casciaro, told State broadcaster Rai Tre's Agorà program that the union was sounding the alarm as, "over the past 50 years, perhaps, no reform has ever radically overturned the physiognomy of the Constitution" in such a way "by altering the existing relationship between the powers of the State and setting the ground for a possible influence of judicial power".
    Meanwhile ANM President Giuseppe Santalucia told Sky Tg24 on Monday that the reform will "worsen the service" provided by magistrates to citizens and "weaken the framework of guarantees". The separation of career paths will also create "a giant prosecutor who will be necessarily closer to the executive.
    "In many countries, this is the beginning" of "criminal prosecution being influenced by political power - a road that questions the principle of equality".
    Santalucia also said a draw process introduced by the reform to elect the judiciary's self-governing body, the Superior Council of Magistrates (CSM), which its architect Justice Minister Carlo Nordio says is aimed at breaking the "pathological" hold of factions on the two allegedly interlocking groups of judges and prosecutors in what he says is a highly politicised judicial world, would "deprive magistrates of the active and passive electoral vote.
    "It's like saying: you are unable to elect your representatives", said Santalucia.
    "The draw process is not a cure-all and humiliates the judiciary, the only" categoty that would be "deprived of this right", said Santalucia.
    Italian magistrates will strike on February 27 against the planned reform, which received its first green light from the Lower House on Tursday, one of four parliamentary votes necessary to approve the constitutional reform bill.
    On that day, the start of the judicial year in Italy, the ANM said it will ask its members to leave the hall when Justice Minister Carlo Nordio inaugurates proceedings.
    They will also don a tricolour cockade and display placards bearing excepts from the Italian Constitution which underline why the controversial reform is, in their view, a breach of the founding charter which stresses the independence of the judiciary in Italy's balance of powers with the executive and parliamentary branches. (ANSA).