Career separation, Senate lacks quorum. Opposition against Ronzulli: “Use kangaroo”

At the first vote on the amendments presented to the reform for the separation of magistrates' careers , the Senate chamber lacked a quorum. The president on duty, Licia Ronzulli, suspended the session for 20 minutes. The one who requested the verification of the quorum was the group leader of the M5S, Stefano Patuanelli .

There was then controversy in the chamber from the opposition who accused Ronzulli of applying the so-called kangaroo, that is the parliamentary practice that allows to vote on amendments by grouping not only the same ones, but also those with similar content. Once the first one is approved or rejected, the others lapse. The first to protest was the PD senator Andrea Giorgis who defined as "unacceptable" the fact that the 'kangaroo' is used for a constitutional reform. A protest shared by the M5S and Avs.

In his reply to Palazzo Madama, the Minister of Justice Carlo Nordio , regarding the separation of careers, said: "With the reform, the judiciary will truly be given some breathing space. The judiciary is certainly independent from political power, but it is not at all independent from itself: it is bound by that whole tangled mess of power called currents for which magistrates have the courage to demonstrate in the streets but do not have the courage to say openly that they are in favor, for example, of certain measures like this, because they come to tell you in a whisper but do not do it to your face because otherwise they would be eliminated from the power structure of the currents. It will not be a humiliation of the magistrates, but rather a recovery of their dignity and freedom".

The minister's speech was finally greeted with a standing ovation from the majority benches. Nordio was then approached by colleagues outside the Chamber. "The High Court of Justice - he also said - will sever this link between voters and elected officials, will prevent this trafficking and also something else, which all foreign colleagues laugh at. Do you know what? The fact that in our country judges are judged by public prosecutors. Judges in judicial councils take their votes from the public prosecutor, who perhaps that same morning, in front of the same judge, asked for a measure and the judge rejected it, perhaps calling him an imbecile".