Justice Minister Carlo Nordio said on
Wednesday that part of the judiciary has been meddling in
politics for decades and argued that the time has come for
magistrates to butt out.
"There was a second phase to 'Clean Hands'," Nordio said at the
'Salone della Giustizia' fair in Rome referring to the
corruption scandal of the early 1990s that brought down Italy's
post-war political establishment.
"Due to a demotion of politics, the judiciary actually took its
place and, from that moment on, many political decisions were
influenced by the judiciary, which allowed itself to criticise
laws.
"In an ideal country, magistrates should not criticise the law
and politicians should not criticise judgments. But after 'Clean
Hands' this situation was reversed.
"Now we need to understand who should be the first to take a
step backwards, but since this 'flood' started with the
judiciary, they should be the ones to do it".
The "flood" Nordio mentioned may have been his way of referring
to a number of recent decisions by courts that have come under
flak from the government for allegedly encroaching on the
political realm.
These include a Rome court's decision last month to nix the
detention of the first group of migrants taken to the newly
opened Italian-run facilities in Albania on the grounds, based
on an October 4 decision taken by the European Court of Justice,
that their countries of provenance were not wholly safe.
Another was the subsequent decision by a Bologna court to refer
a government measure with a list of 19 'safe countries', a bid
to overcome the legal hurdle to its Albanian migrants centres
becoming operative, to the European Court of Justice.
The Bologna judges asked the EU court whether the principle of
the primacy of EU law should prevail if a conflict arises with
Italian legislation in relation to an appeal presented by an
asylum seeker from Bangladesh.
Giuseppe Santalucia, the president of magistrates union ANM,
said last week that the Italian judiciary is unable to work with
serenity because of repeated claims from members of the ruling
coalition that some of its decisions are politically motivated.
Nordio added on Wednesday that the government will press ahead
with plans to separate the career paths of prosecutors and
judges so that it is no longer possible to switch between roles
- a move the ANM has criticised.
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