Magistrates must be impartial, Defence
Minister Guido Crosetto told the House Friday in response to a
furore sparked by his claim that a leftwing faction of the
judiciary is the only real threat to Italy's rightwing
government.
Crosetto said earlier this week that he was happy to report to
parliament after sparking the furore by warning of elements
within the judiciary forming "judicial opposition" to Premier
Giorgia Meloni's government in an interview published in
Corriere della Sera on Sunday.
In the interview, the minister was reported as saying he had
"heard about meetings of a faction within the judiciary in which
they talk about how to 'stop the anti-democratic drift Meloni is
leading us to'.
"Since we have seen all sorts of things in the past, if I know
this country, I expect this season to open soon, before the
European elections," said Crosetto, a member of Meloni's
right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party.
The interview sparked an angry reaction from Italian magistrates
union ANM, with its president Giuseppe Santalucia accusing
Crosetto of spreading "fake news which has no foundation and
hurts the institutions".
Santalucia called on Crosetto to "dispel suspicions and
shadows".
Opposition parties also moved to condemn the remarks, with
ex-premier and 5-Star Movement (M5S) leader Giuseppe Conte
saying they amounted to accusing part of the judiciary of being
"subversive" and many MPs calling for Crosetto to report to the
Lower House as soon as possible.
In his statements to the House Friday, Crosetto said that
magistrates must remain "third parties".
He said "I shall open a topic that we must discuss sooner or
later: this clash between politics and the judiciary must end.
"I have found some magistrates - I have heard (centre-left) Area
exponents - who see in the government an attack on the
judiciary, almost as if they do not want it to work.
"There are those who have said that the role of the judiciary
must be to balance the will of the people.
"But whoever has responsibility must be impartial: imagine if a
general or a prefect had uttered (the magistrates') claim".
Crosetto also insisted that he was very willing to address the
issues he had raised, denying the centre-left opposition
Democratic Party's (PD) assertion that he was shying away from
the question.
He said he trusted magistrates but there had been "very serious
interventions" on the part of some allegedly biased officials
against the government.
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