If you would like to know about another big Italian scandal which is brewing, then purchasing a copy of this Saturday’s edition of Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper is a must. It will obviously help if you can read Italian.
I can’t say any more, because I don’t want to land someone I know in trouble.
Those of who have been following Italian news will know that an amendment to Italian law, which has now past both houses of the Italian parliament, will effectively put trials concerning serious offences committed before 30th June 2002 on hold for one year.
This means that, based on very rough estimates, around 100,000 cases will come to a temporary standstill.
Well, according to some Italian lawyers I know, this political manoeuvre is likely to have quite dire consequences for Italy’s already over stretched court system. There are, it appears, several potentially serious side effects of bringing this legislation into force.
Firstly, the courts in Italy have not really been computerised and so informing all those whose cases are to be locked in stasis is going to prove to be an almost insurmountable task. Apparently, Italy does not have enough clerks of court, and those that exist are already overstretched. Simply telling everyone who needs to be told will literally mean, so I am informed, digging through piles of case files in order to understand who is affected by this imaginative legislative change. A bureaucratic nightmare, if ever there was one.
Then, there are all those lawyers who will have to shelve everything, only to have to come back to their cases in a year’s time. Just imagine trying to pick up all the pieces regarding some intricate little case after having been forced to ignore it for a whole year. Italy’s lawyers must be shuddering in their shoes.
Next, there is the problem of the judges. They too will have to set aside all their deliberations for 12 months, and then attempt to pick things up where they left off. Again, the stuff of nightmares. I wonder how many Italian judges are having a few sleepless nights at present. Quite a number, and that’s not taking into account other collateral effects such as those judges (and lawyers) who may come up for retirement in the meantime. A form of hell on earth, or rather, in Italy.
While, as pointed out by the Financial Times, (and as mentioned in my recent ‘Friendly Times‘ post) it may be necessary to ‘curb Italy’s judges’, should Berlusconi be curbing all of them solely because he suspects that a few harbour political ambitions or favour those who do not form part of his alliance? Just what will the cost to Italy be for saving his skin?
There is a risk that this new law will cause Italy’s already fragile legal towers to come crashing noisily down, and as to where that will leave Italy is anybody’s guess.
Politicians, don’t you just love them. ‘Practical’ and ‘reason’ are not words which enter their vocabulary too often methinks.
‘Phut’ is a lovely onomatopoeic little word, and, if you believe the conCERNs of some people, this is what could happen if the whizzy new physicists’ plaything, the Large Hadron Collider, ends up producing a black hole, which then proceeds to suck us all in.
Apparently, an appropriately named, and potentially mischievous, hypothetical little object called a ‘strangelet‘, could provoke a reaction which may consign us all to oblivion.
Of course the scientists are eager to start playing with this great big, and hugely expensive, new toy. To counter claims that the end of the world may be nigh, those with more brain cells that all the world’s WAGS put together, are arguing that what they will be doing is nothing more that what has been going on throughout the galaxy since time immemorial.
But what if they are wrong?
It would be interesting to see how many prophecies foretelling the end of the world as we know it, refer to 2008 or later, would it not?
Oh well, if the earth ending coitus interruptus does occur, at least I won’t have to worry about my tax bill. Ever again. Would be a shame to lose all the WAGS though.
I watched an interesting fly on the wall type documentary the other day entitled ‘Tolleranza Zero’ – ‘Zero Tolerance’ (Yes, at times Italian and English are extremely similar).
This program was shown on La7, one of Italy’s public TV channels, and was about, as you might expect, how the Italian police are dealing with crime in and around Milan in Italy.
What came across to me was the high level of professionalism exhibited by the sometimes maligned Italian ‘polizia’. The ‘polizia’ is not the same as the para-military ‘carabinieri’, by the way, although the polizia does have a similar function. For more information on Italy’s many police type bodies, you might like my old post called ‘They Got Guns‘.
Certainly the Milanese polizia appear to be doing their job, and doing it rather well. Indeed, the recent proposals to put soldiers on the streets in Italy appear to be something of a slap in the face for this organisation, which is something of a shame.
Still, politicians who don’t interfere wouldn’t be good politicians, now would they?!
As an aside, the few documentaries which appear on Italian TV, usually far too late in the evening, are, for the most part, very well made.
Nope, not this year. I’m not going to subject you to my annual whinge about the horrendous heat here in Milan.
Nor am I going to whine about the temperature shooting from 15°C to 35°C in well under a week.
I won’t complain about not being able to sleep a wink, nor shall I moan about my permanently sweat drenched forehead.
No expostulation from me this year on feeling as though I’m living in a huge sauna. I won’t carp on about how the smothering heat lingers right on through the night either.
I shall desist from mentioning that at around half ten this evening the green pharmacy thermometers were still displaying 30 °C.
Nope, no grouching, no grumbling, no fussing, fretting, griping, groaning or grousing from me this year, on the sweltering temperatures here in Milan.
There, I told you I wasn’t going to complain, and I haven’t.
The British press has not been known for being the best of friends with Berlusconi, to say the least. Yet, in a recent article – ‘Italy is right to curb its politicised judges’ – the Financial Times has come out in support, albeit a little guarded, of the current Italian government’s moves to bring what is viewed as being a highly politicised Italian legal system to heel.
The FT article appears to confirm Berlusconi’s suspicions that certain judges have been exerting slightly more influence than solely their power to enforce the law, and have been striving either to grab a piece of Italy’s power cake or to ensure that ‘friends’ reach high places.
Even more surprising is that the FT indicates that allowing Berlusconi to worm his way out of one case may well be a worthwhile sacrifice to make, in that getting the tanned one of the hook would be a relatively small price to pay along the road to an, as far as can ever be possible, impartial judiciary.
Many Italians agree that the court system here needs quite a shake up. Trials here can take literally decades to weave their way through Italy’s tortuously slowly court system, and quite often, after all the expense and time, cases are dropped owing to time-barring legislation. Heck knows what this is costing the country.
The FT article also points out that Berlusconi supporting Italians are distrustful of Italian judges, although the reason why this is the case is not clear.
At a street level, you will hear that people find the legal system frustrating in that no one ever seems to go to prison here. The ‘no ones’ in question are, more often than not, big wigs who have come under investigation (Andreotti, Previti, Tanzi?). Italians are not stupid and the fact that the fall of Enron, and the recent mortgage crash in the US, led to the arrest and imprisonment of the rich and powerful, has not escaped their attention. Many Italians would love to see the same happen here.
Yes, there is dissatisfaction with the judiciary in Italy, at both political and popular levels. However, the reasons for the dissatisfaction are not necessarily the same.
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To get Italy flavour news and updates via Twitter, follow: @newsfromitaly 2300+ followers and counting.For those who did not know, Francesco Cossiga, who died the other day, was an Italian politician and one time President of Italy. Cossiga hailed from Sardinia, was a fan of John Le Carre and had earned himself the nickname “the pickaxe” owing to his no holds barred criticism of other Italian politicians.
As you may be aware, the generally tumultus world of Italian politics is in turmoil. The Berlusconi government is teetering on the brink of collapse, but what is really surprising, is that this collapse was sparked from the inside.
From spat to full-blown split. Silvio Berlusconi’s marriage of political convenience to Gianfranco Fini has ended in tears. Scorned lover Berlusconi even rejected Fini’s last minute attempts to kiss and make up and remain part of Berlusconi’s party of love. End of love in. Period.
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