I want to focus on my country, in order to recall two issues, very negative and correlated risks. First of all, I want to underline the “risks of the political atmosphere”, the risk that judges and PP can unconsciously be conditioned by “atmosphere influences”. A few days ago a first instance court in Milan sentenced Mr Berlusconi to 4 years of imprisonment; it was not the first trial he was involved in (and this a demonstration of independency of the judiciary); the previous trials arrived to a sentence against other persons, but never against Mr Berlusconi, who was acquitted, at least with the formula that the proofs gathered were not sufficient (bard clause). In Italy we have – I think – the highest type of independency of the Judiciary in Europe; our Judiciary had to face several grave cases of widespread criminality: terrorisms, corruption, mafia. And were able to exercise its powers in a correct way, quite ever arriving to the reconstruction of the events and of the consequent responsibilities. Though, sometime, I am afraid that the above-mentioned decisions of acquittal of Mr Berlusconi could be in some extent related to the “atmosphere”. The doubt is that, maybe unconsciously and -of course – unwillingly, the “atmosphere” could influence some colleagues. And in this regard I must quote another phenomenon that happened in Mr Berlusconi’s term: the adoption of the “leges ad personam”. This included the adoption of new laws very urgently during the course of a criminal trial into which Mr Berlusconi was involved. The entering into force of these laws produced a patent effect: the acquittal of Mr Berlusconi. But there was a second and far more dangerous effect, an invisible effect: that is the message sent to the members of the Judiciary. Message was: mind you; it is not worthwhile; it could be dangerous to insist. That was something related to the atmosphere.

Monetti: “Autonomy of the Judiciary is the Foundation of Democracy”

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