The Anm, "attacks from certain politicians to discredit the magistrates". The League, "fewer conferences and more work"

“In the last period we have witnessed by a certain politician to increasingly frequent attacks to measures rendered by Italian magistrates in the exercise of their jurisdictional functions, criticized not for their technical-legal content, but because they are unwelcome to the political direction of the government majority”. This is a passage from the final document approved today by the Central Board of Directors of ‘National Association of Magistrates which continues as follows: “The political matrix of the decisions is adduced a priori, maintaining that the magistrates who adopted them would be more intent on engaging in politics than on impartially carrying out their role as judges. This is an attack on jurisdiction instrumental in discrediting the judiciary to prepare the ground a reforms that tend to subject control of legality to politics entrusted by the Constitution to the judiciary”.

“The freedom of expression of thought belongs to the magistrate also as a citizen, who exercises it, even in public debate, with a sense of responsibility and respect for the high jurisdictional function performed – we read again in the document -. To maintain, without any foundation, that a magistrate has adopted a measure to pursue objectives other than those of the exercise of jurisdiction a serious accusation that can no longer be tolerated, since it undermines the fundamental rights of the individual magistrates involved and of the jurisdiction: delegitimizing the judiciary is an operation that undermines the democratic stability of the country”, it is underlined.

The Central Steering Committee of the ANM “believes, due to the gravity of the moment, that it must take adequate initiatives and therefore: invites every political actor to respect the constitutional principle of the separation of powers and the autonomy and independence of the jurisdictional order”. “Copy of the resolution” approved by the Central Steering Committee of the ANM “will be transmitted to the CSM for the evaluations of the autonomous governing body and for the consequent initiatives to protect the independence and autonomy of the judiciary“.

The document also explains how “the increasingly frequent attacks” directed at magistrates “in the exercise of their jurisdictional functions, criticized not for their technical-legal content, but because they are unwelcome to the political orientation of the government majority”, were followed “operations of undue reconstruction of private life of the magistrates who authored those decisions aimed at selecting and making public personal choices deemed related to the measures adopted. The media lynching to which a certain journalism has lent itself has struck the judges and their natural tendency to decide free from their own convictions and passions: scrutinizing people’s lives, reporting their intimate events, completely devoid of public relevance, is conduct not in line with journalistic ethics”.

The League’s response

“We reassure the ANM: to discredit the judiciary, all that is needed is the judiciary blocking the expulsions of illegal illegal criminals, freeing drug dealers by mistake, taking to the streets against the government, asking for prison for Matteo Salvini because ‘he is right but he must be attacked’. For to reverse the trend, it would be enough to start with the most banal things. For example: fewer conferences and more work”. Thus a note from the League in response to the document approved by the Anm.

Migrants: Anm, concern about impact on appeal courts

“The concern” of the ANM is serious for “the impact that two changes to the current legislation, which were proposed in the so-called flows decree (which also included the Safe Countries decree) being examined by the Chamber.

In particular, the magistrates refer to the “recent modification, by decree-law to the matter of international protection with the reintroduction of the instrument of complaint to the Court of Appeal against the provisions of the District Courts; the amending proposal of the rapporteur, presented at the time of conversion of the decree-law, for the attribution of competence regarding the validation of the detention of asylum seekers to the Courts of Appeal and no longer to the specialized sections on immigration matters of the Courts”.

This can be read in a document approved unanimously by the Central Steering Committee of the National Association of Magistrates. For the magistrates “the restoration of the appeal, abolished by the 2017 law, will upset the organizational structure of the Courts of Appeal” and “the return to the double level of merit will bring the territorial courts to their knees, irreversibly compromising their ability to achieve the objectives imposed by the Pnrr”. And again: “The introduction of a new level of appeal will lengthen the process of ascertaining the immigrant’s status and will determine the risk of a longer stay in Italy than who may not have the right to reside there”.

“The rapporteur’s amendment, if accepted by Parliament, will aggravate the organizational situation of the Courts of Appeal, which will be called, for a decision that appears devoid of reasonablenessto carry out, without corresponding increases in staff, the tasks which until now have been the responsibility, due to obvious systematic coherence, of the specialized sections of the Courts”. “It is not possible to understand the meaning of the shift in competence: what can be hypothesized is which is a consequence of the decisions taken by some specialized sections and harshly criticized by various political exponents”. The Central Steering Committee of the ANM therefore invites “the Minister of Justice to work to avoid” this “risk”.