Separating careers is not right-wing

On the same topic:

Yesterday, the Senate approved the justice reform promoted by the Meloni government: separation of careers between judges and prosecutors, and reform of the CSM with partial drawing of lots. A significant turning point. Yet, rather than the right winning, it's the left losing—against itself. Because this reform isn't right-wing. Or rather, it wasn't. In 2019, during the Democratic Party congress, Maurizio Martina wrote in black and white that "the issue of career separation appears unavoidable to guarantee a third-party and impartial judge." Delrio, Guerini, Orfini, Malpezzi, Verducci, and Serracchiani (now the Democratic Party's justice chief) signed on. Today, the same people are putting up barricades. What has changed? The government.

The reform approved yesterday (now going to the Chamber for a second reading) provides for two distinct career paths, two separate CSMs, and a mixed selection mechanism, with some members drawn at random from lawyers and professors. It's an attempt (whether serious or not, we'll see) to undermine the power of the factions. But instead of discussing it on the merits, the left has preferred a Pavlovian reflex: if Meloni proposes it, then it's an attack on the Constitution. In doing so, it has gifted the right a battle it could have led. It has abandoned the principle of due process for fear of appearing weak. And it has left it to Carlo Nordio—a former magistrate, a liberal—to assert the impartiality of judges as a modern principle. A grotesque paradox: while the left defends the corporative and self-referential structure of the judiciary, the right can now set itself up as the champion of independent justice. And with good cards in hand: because, like it or not, the current system—with prosecutors and judges sitting side by side—has a problem. Due process is colorless. But self-harm, yes. And the Democratic Party, rather than reclaim its reformist history, prefers to pretend not to remember it. AAA Looking for healthy reformism on the left. Time-wasters, vigilantes, please refrain.

More on these topics: