“The proposed constitutional law to reform the judiciary hurts the citizen even before being approved or rejected“, thus Maria Martello, former honorary judge at the Juvenile Court and then at the Court of Appeal of Milan, gets straight to the heart of the constitutional reform which – she recalls – deserves “careful analysis and suitable time for responsible and truthful reflections”.
And instead everything seems to proceed as if it were an urgent matter that cannot be postponed and as if this proposal is undergoing some sort of acceleration. As if it were, in short, an emergency to which an immediate response was needed, “without reflecting, without understanding, without contradictory”.
It was with Maria Martello that we took stock of what awaits us in March with confirmatory referendum on the constitutional reform of justice (the law approved by Parliament did not reach the qualified majority required by the Constitution and therefore must be subjected to a popular vote to come into force).
The judge’s first big NO concerns the very idea of weakening the judiciary.
I say NO to the fact that such an independent body as the judiciary, intended to intervene in the most critical circumstances of an individual’s existence, is weakened if not even discredited.
And he adds a crucial passage: “Made up of selected people. Instead, they must be chosen based on competence“.
Another central point is that the reform does not address the real problems of justice.
I say NO to the fact that this reform, as the person proposing it says, does not improve the conditions of the Courts. Disputes will continue to increase because “those responsible are doing nothing to prevent them”.
The solution, according to Martello, lies elsewhere:
Generalized training in relationships, education in the peaceful management of conflicts, and adequate information on alternative settlement institutions would be needed. But we don’t talk about this.
Then there is the resources node:
I say NO to insufficient economic resources that are never strengthened.
I say NO to maintaining understaffed judicial offices.
I say NO to chancelleries without adequate funds.
I say NO to the exorbitant number of files assigned to each magistrate.
It is a list that describes a system under pressure, not through the fault of the judges, but due to failed political choices. In short, for Martello, justice must be considered “a primary good equal at least to health and education“And he draws a clear parallel:
Just as it is serious to discredit the teaching staff in schools or to place the responsibility for the health crisis on doctors, it is equally serious to make citizens believe that the long delays in justice are the fault of the judges.
But this message, he warns, takes hold because it touches a deep emotional level, leveraging the feeling of “childish” annoyance towards those whose task is to sanction illicit acts.
The child part of each of us always hopes to get away with it and is certainly not grateful if it is caught with its fingers in the cookie jar. Yet – remember – the role of the judiciary is exactly this: ooffer containment to deviance, contribute to the safety of cities as well as the well-being of every person. This is the noble role played by the judiciary.
The judge also expresses strong indignation at the instrumental use of painful cases:
It outrages me to see situations such as the “family of the woods”, the Garlasco crime, or resurrect judicial errors such as the Tortora case.
Tragic but physiological events in human action, which become emotional weapons. All this is aimed at proceeding from the gut, authorizing anyone to replace the judges without knowing the cards, without training, without respect for jurisdictional procedures.
Even on the issue of the separation of careers between judges and prosecutors, Martello is clear:
The urgency of this choice is not clear to me, in fact I am suspicious and alarmed. I have been an honorary judge for over 25 years. I alternately held civil and criminal hearings. One experience enriched the other. We have never found any damage.
Maria Martello’s NO is not ideological, but civil:
I agree with voting NO to the referendum because it is an opportunity to give voice to citizens’ indignation and their civic sense. Democracy is everyone’s good and we must all defend it.
In this sense, the referendum does not only concern the judicial system, but also the way in which a society chooses to protect its most delicate institutions: strengthening them or delegitimizing them.
