Political responsibility and criminal responsibility

The judicial affair involving the mayor of Pesaro, Matteo Ricci, calls for reflection on the boundaries between political responsibility and criminal responsibility, and therefore the forms and methods with which the indispensable control of the legality of administrative activity entrusted to the judicial authority is carried out.

It should be noted, without delving into the merits of the case, which I know only in the details of the indictment proposed by the Pesaro prosecutor, that another prosecutor's office in the Marche region, the one in Ancona, in 2013 excoriated an entire political class, accusing all the key figures in the Marche Regional Council—from the right to the Communist Refoundation Party, including Forza Italia and the Democratic Party—of involvement in the theft of regional funds intended to support the activities of the council groups. This detailed account was incorporated into the indictment, which turned out, as I will explain, to be radically unfounded. The accusation was accompanied by an (inevitable) media lynching.

For many of them, if not all, it was the end of a commitment and a political career.

On that occasion, I had defended Regional President Gian Mario Spacca, who was acquitted in a summary trial. The ruling exposed the complete lack of foundation of the charges, which were handed over to the Guardia di Finanza (Financial Police), without the Ancona Prosecutor's Office having conducted any serious investigation beyond a purely accounting-based one. Despite this, the prosecutor refused to give up and began a tortuous process, which included the confirmation of the acquittal, then two annulments by the Supreme Court of Cassation over the demand to uphold a trial devoid of any plausible evidence. In short, a judicial ordeal that has persisted to this day, forcing an honest political figure to live for many years under an unjustified sword of Damocles.

The 2013 investigation involved, as mentioned, the entire body of elected officials to the Regional Council and was divided into various branches depending on the chosen procedure, the last of which concluded with a general acquittal before the Collegiate Court of Ancona in 2022, after several years of trial.

The current Regional Council President, Dino Latini, whose defense I had taken on, was acquitted beyond the statute of limitations, given the evidence of his innocence, after an 11-year wait. If there ever was any accountability in the management of public funds, it was swept away by this approach.

I share this professional experience to emphasize that among the virtues of those who act as prosecutors, the most important thing should be a selective prudence regarding responsibilities, in the knowledge that the initiation of criminal proceedings sets in motion a devastating process, regardless of the outcome in subsequent trials. Great care should be taken to avoid copying judicial police reports, which often suffer from a dependence on the Executive and the Ministers responsible for those carrying them out.

A caution anchored today by a legal constraint that requires the Public Prosecutor to act only when faced with a reasonable prognosis of a conviction.

Giovanni Fiandaca has already spoken, pointing out the lack of compatibility—with respect to an acceptable delineation between politics and justice—of the alleged accusation against Ricci, now revealed. If the political protagonist is accused of pursuing electoral consensus as an illicit purpose, it ends up being confused with a rationale coessential to his very actions.

The legitimacy of a politician in a democratic system derives from his or her election, unlike judges and public prosecutors, who base their power on their cognitive capacity, capable of rigorously evaluating the facts and the legal rules they intend to apply within the framework of an autonomy guaranteed by the Constitution.

It is therefore a complex and risky interpretative process because the intervention of the criminal justice system always causes serious problems: not only does it jeopardize individual freedom, but it can also disrupt the personal, family, and social life of those involved in the proceedings. It requires particular attention, especially when it involves individuals who, simply by announcing a charge, could suffer irreparable harm.

Even apart from the dogmatic categories evoked by the Sicilian Maestro, it must be noted that an approach such as the one contested by the Pesaro Prosecutor's Office, the calling into question of the mayor

together with a good part of the administrative system of the Municipality, it puts the accusation hypothesis at serious risk of a failed outcome.

In addition to Bibbiano, we must not forget the devastating experience in the Marche region, which, given its territorial proximity, should be well-known to current investigators: by painting a picture of a dark night, any individual responsibilities are obscured and large-scale trials are created, destined to derail the proper exercise of jurisdiction.