5 years after the release of the book with Palamara, nothing has changed. But, at least, citizens can express their opinion on the robes at the referendum
When five years ago I co-wrote the book Il Sistema with former magistrate Luca Palamara, I did not imagine that that story would become the basis of the subsequent discussion on the state of health, or rather illness, of Italian justice. Most of the distortions that Palamara, long head of that system, recounted and documented with undeniable precision today find an answer in the justice reform approved by Parliament and soon to be examined by Italians in the referendum at the end of March. If the legislator felt the urgent and mandatory need to intervene it is because the “system”, regardless of having been unmasked and lied to, tried to resist by inventing a thesis so absurd as to border on the ridiculous.
The following: Palamara was a rotten apple from a healthy plant, with him gone and a couple of his alleged accomplices moved everything is back perfectly fine, there is no need to reform anything. Obviously things are not like this, just browse through the album of judicial and political news from recent years to find confirmation. But since a characteristic of the “system” is that of operating in the shadows and camouflaging itself, there was the need to carry out a second truth operation which took shape in The System Strikes Again, a journey behind the scenes of the five years of orphan justice of Palamara, who – yes – is no longer a magistrate but who has remained immersed up to his neck in that world and still knows its tricks and secrets.
What emerges is a disheartening picture. In the five years that have passed since the fall of the former member of the CSM, the judiciary has continued to defend its privileges, has maintained and cultivated pieces of power that do not belong to it, has continued to alter the choices of voters with political investigations and heavy interventions to counter the legitimate action of the government.
But not only that. Incapable of self-reform, the justice system is unable to reverse the trend which sees it slipping further and further down the ranking of efficiency and reliability among European countries. One fact above all: every year a thousand unfortunates end up in prison following unjust detention, a hateful mistake which however does not provide penalties or sanctions for the judge who makes it.
Which supports the fear expressed by the writer Jorge Luis Borges: «To be afraid of magistrates you don’t necessarily have to be guilty». By writing this second episode of the saga I also discovered what the worst flaw of magistrates is, at least of those who participate in the great game of power: lying. Yes, the gentlemen lie, they deny the evidence, they throw smoke screens to cover the truth, they are specialists in the game of three tablets.
The magistrates, those magistrates, lie when talking to each other and at the same time they lie to the Italians, as they did in the poster that their trade association, the ANM, had put up in many stations and which reads: “Do you want judges to depend on politics?” (in the reform we never talk about judges, rather about prosecutors which is something completely different). When you happen to hear some judge rant on television about issues that are not related to his investigations, a good antidote is to adopt the recipe developed by Vittorio Feltri: «Magistrates have the right to express their opinion, of course. Just make it clear that it’s worth as much as mine or my greengrocer’s.”
