IL FATTO QUOTIDIANO
by Marco travaglio
29 DECEMBER 2019
When, in a few years, universities study the death of journalism, they will not be able to forget the end of 2019. In those days– will explain the prof to his astonished students– the first news on the main newspapers was a tragic but ordinary road accident, identical to those that happen every day in all the world’s metropolises. Their sites broadcast live streaming the funerals of the young victims, cut down overnight by a young drunk motorist while walking through a dark street with a red light, in a kind of Russian roulette rather widespread in the area. And the next day the first pages opened with the homily of the parish priest, with really shocking contents: that you should not drive drunk. In the same days, Italy was in danger of creating a semi-civil procedural system, adopting the prescription system that has always been in force in developed countries: if the State does not give a name and a face to the offender of a crime, After so many years the crime is prescribed; but, if the State detects the alleged guilty, the trial comes to the end with no more statute that holds: if the guy is innocent will be acquitted, if he is guilty will be convicted and the victims will have justice. This rule of minimum civilisation had been invoked for 20 years by all bona fide experts, scandalized by that selective amnesty, classist and censitarian that allowed the rich and powerful guilty to get away with it by artfully lengthening the time of the trials with appeals, exceptions, quibbles, objections, remittances and excused impediments up to the prescription, Maybe after two convictions and a day before the third and last, so much for their victims.
Thus, in the last 10 years, 1.5 million trials had been prescribed, that is, the’had escaped more than 2 million offenders (trials usually have multiple defendants) and had been without justice at least 3 million victims. The prescription, in fact, is reserved for the guilty: the innocent judge is obliged to absolve them, not to prescribe them (if there is no crime, there is nothing to prescribe). For twenty years the major newspapers had recounted and deplored this scandalous system, which had miraculously even two former premiers: Andreotti (prescribed for Mafia) and Berlusconi (9 times prescribed for corruption of judges, senators and witnesses, illicit financing to politicians, budget fraud and tax fraud). And they had hosted lawyers and magistrates who asked to bring the prescription back to its original spirit: if a crime does not follow a trial, after a while it turns over; but if the trial has left, it must come to an end.
Not for nothing, the statute of limitations during the trial existed only in Italy and Greece, until a rule of the Law Corrupt Sweep wanted by the 5 stars, but announced for years also by the pd, It blocked it after the first-degree sentence for crimes committed since 1 January 2020. But instead of cheering those who had always supported that reform of pure common sense, it threw them into panic and consternation. The newspapers that had always denounced the destruction of the 150,000 trials prescribed per year, began to defend the old prescription unique in the world (Greece apart). La Stampa, which once housed the editorials of great jurists such as Alessandro Galante garrone and magistrates such as Giovanni Falcone, appeared to be the parody of Berlusconian house organs, with titles such as: “prescription, to save Count the pd yields to the reform of the 5stars. The lawyers predict a flood of appeals: punitive rule,so you go back to the Middle Ages”, “Zingaretti surrenders to justice”, “I dem hope in the Consulta”; (as if getting away is a constitutional right). The Corriere della sera, turning in his tomb his great signatures of the past enemy of the prescription, from Vittorio grevi down, relied on the delirium of Angelo panebianco: the well-known jurist happened to claim, seriously, that to block the prescription“is as close as possible to the introduction of the death penalty” (which therefore applies throughout the rest of Europe without the knowledge of most); it violates the principle of non guilt” (but the innocents are acquitted, not the statute of limitations); it breaks the balance between political power and judicial order” (but the statute of limitations covers all crimes, not just those of politicians: perhaps for white bread all politicians are guilty?). And he launched a heartbreaking sos at the Consulta (without specifying which article of the Constitution would impose the statute of limitations up to the last level of judgment).
But the best, as always, was given by Repubblica: after having published thousands of articles to ask for the stop, he entrusted the solemn praise of Holy Prescription to Luigi manconi, who defined it as a precious institution of guarantee of the individual”even B. on the right and branding criminal populism“; twenty years of battles in his newspaper. Then defined the requirement “one of the major acceleration factors of the process” (in fact, lawyers, when the time limit is almost up, ask the judge to hold hearings at all times, even at night, including holidays, to avoid it). And, after an accelerated course of law at the Divino Otelma, he explained to the astonished readers of Repubblica that, with the“disgrace”bonafede norm, “it may happen that those who have been acquitted after 29 and a half years by the infamous accusation of vote of exchange are condemned to the limbo of the procedural uncertainty for another lustre”. That is to stay charged for 35 years. Too bad that the exchange vote, punished from 10 to 15 years with the 2018 reform, is prescribed after 18 or 19: half of 35. The information funerals will take place at a designated place and date. Live streaming on the sites of the best newspapers, ça va sans dire.
When, in a few years, universities study the death of journalism, they will not be able to forget the end of 2019. In those days– will explain the prof to his astonished students– the first news on the main newspapers was a tragic but ordinary road accident, identical to those that happen every day in all the world’s metropolises. Their sites broadcast live streaming the funerals of the young victims, cut down overnight by a young drunk motorist while walking through a dark street with a red light, in a kind of Russian roulette rather widespread in the area. And the next day the first pages opened with the homily of the parish priest, with really shocking contents: that you should not drive drunk. In the same days, Italy was in danger of creating a semi-civil procedural system, adopting the prescription system that has always been in force in developed countries: if the State does not give a name and a face to the offender of a crime, After so many years the crime is prescribed; but, if the State detects the alleged guilty, the trial comes to the end with no more statute that holds: if the guy is innocent will be acquitted, if he is guilty will be convicted and the victims will have justice. This rule of minimum civilisation had been invoked for 20 years by all bona fide experts, scandalized by that selective amnesty, classist and censitarian that allowed the rich and powerful guilty to get away with it by artfully lengthening the time of the trials with appeals, exceptions, quibbles, objections, remittances and excused impediments up to the prescription, Maybe after two convictions and a day before the third and last, so much for their victims.
Thus, in the last 10 years, 1.5 million trials had been prescribed, that is, the’had escaped more than 2 million offenders (trials usually have multiple defendants) and had been without justice at least 3 million victims. The prescription, in fact, is reserved for the guilty: the innocent judge is obliged to absolve them, not to prescribe them (if there is no crime, there is nothing to prescribe). For twenty years the major newspapers had recounted and deplored this scandalous system, which had miraculously even two former premiers: Andreotti (prescribed for Mafia) and Berlusconi (9 times prescribed for corruption of judges, senators and witnesses, illicit financing to politicians, budget fraud and tax fraud). And they had hosted lawyers and magistrates who asked to bring the prescription back to its original spirit: if a crime does not follow a trial, after a while it turns over; but if the trial has left, it must come to an end.
Not for nothing, the statute of limitations during the trial existed only in Italy and Greece, until a rule of the Law Corrupt Sweep wanted by the 5 stars, but announced for years also by the pd, It blocked it after the first-degree sentence for crimes committed since 1 January 2020. But instead of cheering those who had always supported that reform of pure common sense, it threw them into panic and consternation. The newspapers that had always denounced the destruction of the 150,000 trials prescribed per year, began to defend the old prescription unique in the world (Greece apart). La Stampa, which once housed the editorials of great jurists such as Alessandro Galante garrone and magistrates such as Giovanni Falcone, appeared to be the parody of Berlusconian house organs, with titles such as: “prescription, to save Count the pd yields to the reform of the 5stars. The lawyers predict a flood of appeals: punitive rule,so you go back to the Middle Ages”, “Zingaretti surrenders to justice”, “I dem hope in the Consulta”; (as if getting away is a constitutional right). The Corriere della sera, turning in his tomb his great signatures of the past enemy of the prescription, from Vittorio grevi down, relied on the delirium of Angelo panebianco: the well-known jurist happened to claim, seriously, that to block the prescription“is as close as possible to the introduction of the death penalty” (which therefore applies throughout the rest of Europe without the knowledge of most); it violates the principle of non guilt” (but the innocents are acquitted, not the statute of limitations); it breaks the balance between political power and judicial order” (but the statute of limitations covers all crimes, not just those of politicians: perhaps for white bread all politicians are guilty?). And he launched a heartbreaking sos at the Consulta (without specifying which article of the Constitution would impose the statute of limitations up to the last level of judgment).
But the best, as always, was given by Repubblica: after having published thousands of articles to ask for the stop, he entrusted the solemn praise of Holy Prescription to Luigi manconi, who defined it as a precious institution of guarantee of the individual”even B. on the right and branding criminal populism“; twenty years of battles in his newspaper. Then defined the requirement “one of the major acceleration factors of the process” (in fact, lawyers, when the time limit is almost up, ask the judge to hold hearings at all times, even at night, including holidays, to avoid it). And, after an accelerated course of law at the Divino Otelma, he explained to the astonished readers of Repubblica that, with the“disgrace”bonafede norm, “it may happen that those who have been acquitted after 29 and a half years by the infamous accusation of vote of exchange are condemned to the limbo of the procedural uncertainty for another lustre”. That is to stay charged for 35 years. Too bad that the exchange vote, punished from 10 to 15 years with the 2018 reform, is prescribed after 18 or 19: half of 35. The information funerals will take place at a designated place and date. Live streaming on the sites of the best newspapers, ça va sans dire.
