Analysis
The Italian right launched a targeted attack on the judiciary after ‘safe country’ ruling
The target coordinates for the assault against the Bologna judge were given out by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni herself, who last Wednesday evening branded the court's ruling as “a propaganda leaflet.”
This time, the government’s attack on the judiciary is particularly virulent: Judge Marco Gattuso, the president of the immigration section of the Bologna court, who three days ago sent the “Safe Countries” Decree for evaluation to the European Court of Justice, has become the new target of the right-wing and its media arm.
He has been excoriated not only for being a member of the Democratic Magistrates and attending “events on gender and immigration,” but his cardinal sin according to the right is the fact that he and his partner fathered a child born through surrogacy 10 years ago.
Not only that: in 2023, the Bologna-based judge held a lecture at the Italian School for the Judiciary on the same topic of “safe countries.” On that occasion, he gave the same example that also made it into his ruling against the government decree: the paradox of Hitler's Germany, which could be considered a “safe country” for the vast majority of its inhabitants (in fact, everyone except Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and political enemies of the regime). This has led his critics to scream “prejudice” – but it can hardly be a judge’s fault that the government's laws easily collapse under scrutiny.
The media lynching is the result of the same old playbook, already seen a year ago against the Catania judge Iolanda Apostolico, and more recently against the Roman judges Silvia Albano and Marco Patarnello: throwing the first stone and then hiding one’s hand while all hell breaks loose on social media, with insults, threats, various nonsensical claims and insinuations based on nothing.
The target coordinates for the assault against the Bologna judge were given out by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni herself, who last Wednesday evening branded the court's ruling as “a propaganda leaflet.” The next day, in the government-adjacent newspapers, the attacks against Judge Gattuso were already served up. Then came the usual circus of defamation and insults. One should point out that last time, Silvia Albano had even received death threats (which were reported to the prosecutor's office). Accordingly, the level of alarm has risen among the magistrate community: on Monday, in Bologna, an extraordinary assembly of the Emilia Romagna chapter of the National Association of Magistrates will be held, in which ANM president Giuseppe Santalucia will participate, most likely together with the leaders of the progressive currents in the national organization. It is even possible that members of the opposition parties will show up on the occasion. After all, the war that the government has decided to declare on the judiciary is gradually getting more virulent, and at this point it is impossible to reduce it to the level of the usual clash between opposite sides, a framing that has informed the public debate for the past 30 years. It is no coincidence that, after the Rome court's refusal to approve the detention of migrants in Albania, there were signals of grave concern from President Mattarella’s office, much greater than in the past: the atmosphere that has built up feels unprecedented.
“The private life of others, that is, every manifestation of the private sphere of the citizen, constitutes a limitation of the right to information, because it is connected to the fundamental rights of the person,” commented the president of the Bologna court, Judge Pasquale Riccardo, in defense of Judge Gattuso.
“The magistrates of the international protection section of the Bologna court have been attacked in the press and called into question by some politicians for nothing more than doing their job,” said the secretary of Area Democratica per la Giustizia (Democratic Sector for Justice), Giovanni Zaccaro, who announced that he would be present in Bologna on Monday. “The private lives of magistrates are being prodded and private matters concerning others, including minors, are being spread. There is a limit beyond which reporting becomes lynching and appropriate criticism becomes derision. It is up to all citizens, and especially all jurists, to guard that limit.”
The Democratic Magistrates – the association of so-called “red judges” to which Judge Gattuso belongs, and which the right is lashing out against nearly every day – focused on the internal issue and urged the High Council of the Judiciary (CSM) – which in recent weeks has focused exclusively on the internal issue of judicial office appointments – to intervene.
“These are attacks that go beyond the sacrosanct right to criticize judicial measures,” the leadership of the Democratic Magistrates wrote in a note. “All too many times in recent years, in the face of personal attacks against a magistrate, the CSM has abdicated the exercise of this high institutional responsibility: by not intervening to protect a magistrate; by delaying the opening of an investigation; by intolerably procrastinating in its handling of such investigations, and wallowing in calculations and tactics that do not rise up to the standard of the mandate that the Constitution has entrusted it with.”
Hence their request that the Council should “get back to intervening to protect the independence and prestige of magistrates, with the necessary firmness and seriousness, and, above all, in a timely manner, which is indispensable”; otherwise, “there is the risk that the credibility of the judicial branch will be reduced to rubble.”
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/il-manganello-social-della-destra-si-abbatte-sul-giudice-gattuso on 2024-11-01