All magistrate members of the
judiciary's self-governing body, the Superior Council of
Magistrates (CSM), in addition to lay member Roberto Tomboli, on
Thursday filed a request to open a special procedure to protect
the independence and autonomy of magistrates after Justice
Minister Carlo Nordio on Wednesday said prosecutors "cloned"
cases and carried out "secret and eternal" probes.
Nordio made the allegations while addressing the Senate,
defending his controversial reform of the judiciary, which
includes separating the career paths of judges and prosecutors
so they can no longer switch between the two roles.
"Addressing Parliament in relation to the state of the
judiciary, Minister Nordio, in describing the activity of
prosecutors, spoke about the 'cloning' of cases, of 'hidden and
eternal' investigations, of 'financial disasters', describing
such conduct as a widespread practice in the Republic's State
Attorneys' Offices", noted the text of the request to open the
special procedure.
Nordio, the request noted, "then explained how prosecutors are
already 'supercops' who nevertheless enjoy the same guarantees
as judges, thus providing an erroneous image of the prosecutors'
activities and their role in the current system".
"Such statements appear, moreover, even more serious because
they were made by someone who is among those responsible for
disciplinary actions" against magistrates and who "has the
obligation to report and pursue behaviours which he, with
inappropriate and gratuitous generalization, wants to attribute
to all Italian prosectors", the request also said.
Defending the reform as he addressed the Senate on Wednesday,
the justice minister dismissed, among other things, claims it
would turn prosecutors into 'supercops', saying they already
are.
"In the current system they are already supercops, with the
aggravating factor that they enjoy the same safeguards as a
judge and wield immense power without any real responsibility,"
Nordio said.
"Indeed, today, a prosecutor not only oversees investigations,
but he also creates them, through the so-called cloning of
cases, free from any parameter or any controls, which can
subject a person to hidden, eternal investigations that create
irreparable financial disasters", he said.
"Think of how many investigations have been made up out of
nothing in the true sense of the word and ended in nothing at
the cost millions of euros", noted Nordio.
In relation to CSM members being selected via a draw, he said
this move was no "lese majesty ".
The judiciary's union, the National Association of Magistrates
(ANM), has said the reform 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, and it is set to strike against it on
February 27.
The constitutional reform bill, which received a first green
light from the Lower House last week, would create two distinct
self-governing bodies of the judiciary, one for judges and
another for prosecutors.
Both would be chaired by the head of State.
Members would be selected using a draw process: one-third of
members would include university professors and lawyers from a
list compiled by members of Parliament while the other two
thirds would be judges and prosecutors.
It would create a High Court of Justice which would discipline
both judges and State attorneys.
After the three remaining parliamentary votes, an additional one
in the Lower House and two in the Senate if the text remains
unchanged, the reform can be subjected to a referendum unless
the draft text is approved by at least two-thirds of members of
both Houses in the second vote.
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