Because the center-right is wrong to split over the Bonafede reform
Two attempts in two days by the Brothers of Italy, in the Chamber of Deputies, to overcome the Bonafede reform on the statute of limitations have not been successful. Not even an agenda has passed, also due to the abstention of the center-right allies who support the Draghi government, Forza Italia and Lega, who limited themselves to supporting the majority agenda sponsored by Minister Cartabia (which in fact postpones the problem).
The split of the center-right on such a delicate issue as that of the statute of limitations – which with the reform is effectively canceled after the first degree – highlights a void in the political offer of the coalition: the absence of an area of liberal matrix and libertarian, capable of intransigence when it comes to putting the individual back at the center and protecting fundamental freedoms, which necessarily means reiterating some defensive guarantees: it is the accusation that must prove, in defined and predictable times, the evidence of guilt, not the accused his own innocence.
There are at least two reasons, one of law and one of politics, why Lega and Forza Italia should have supported the guaranteeing position of the Brothers of Italy against the Bonafede reform.
That of law: the cancellation of the prescription after the first degree is in contrast with art. 111 of the Constitution, which requires the reasonable duration of the process. The Italian procedural machine is one of the most backward in Europe, second only to Bosnia and Herzegovina. The average duration of an Italian trial is 2,655 days – about seven and a half years – of which 527 for the first degree, 863 for the appeal and 1,265 for the Supreme Court.
The Bonafede reform will not shorten the times of the trials, precisely because, before the first instance sentence, more than 70 percent of the prescriptions have already matured, in particular more than 60 percent before the preliminary hearing sentence.
On the contrary, with the cancellation the opposite effect could occur: the infinite duration of the trial, with the risk of indicting the accused without ever reaching a definitive sentence.
The second reason is purely political. For many years now, in our country, there has been an air of justicialism that has influenced public opinion, newspapers and political parties. The 5 Star Movement itself, shouting “Honesty! Honesty! ”, He made it a real flag. A demagogic battle, but which has opened the doors of the palaces of power to the pentastellati.
To justicialism based on the presumption of guilt, it is necessary to contrast a healthy pragmatic guarantee, in which the burden of proof falls on the accusation and not on the defense, in which the criminal responsibility is always personal, in which the accused is deemed innocent, and treated as such, until proven otherwise and beyond any reasonable doubt.
Fratelli d'Italia seems to be on the right track. The hope is that Lega and Forza Italia will soon join Giorgia Meloni against the Bonafede reform, without being conditioned by their presence in the Draghi government, at least when the principle of guarantee is at stake.
There is still time – until March 29 – to intervene on the reform of the criminal trial and of the prescription.
The post Why the center-right is wrong to split over the Bonafede reform appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/perche-il-centrodestra-sbaglia-a-dividersi-sulla-riforma-bonafede/ on Thu, 04 Mar 2021 04:58:00 +0000.