«Separating careers serves absolutely no purpose with respect to justice issues. I think that people with skills and in good faith must worry about what is needed to make a trial work, to speed up the trial investigation or to protect the offended parties. Every year out of 100 magistrates only 0.2% change function, and so for only 0.2% do we have to change the Constitution made on the blood of millions of Italians?” stated the prosecutor of Naples, Nicola Gratteri during the fifth day of Plots, Festival of books on mafias.
“The government is doing useless things in the fight against the mafia – adds Gratteri – My concern is not the fight against the mafias, it is not the mafia trials. Legislators, thinking of looking bad, always raise the maximum penalties, but they should raise the minimum, otherwise nothing changes. From Cartabia to today I would only write one article: all the reforms made three years ago should be cancelled, they are useless. Except those of Orlando and also those of the 5 Stars which were important changes”
“We didn’t need differentiated autonomy but a united Italy and that reforms are made that keep it that way, I am thinking of the nationalization of healthcare, therefore the exact opposite. If we are importing doctors from Albania or Cuba, it means that we are in a bad situation. The truth is that we have a short memory, because we chase on a daily basis and no one does long-term planning” declared Gratteri. “I don’t understand anything, I’m a country public prosecutor, but from what I hear around it seems to me that healthcare is a sector in which we are in a bad situation, given that Calabria, for example, is reduced to having doctors come from Cuba.” Gratteri, during the initiative, presented his recently published book «Il grifone», written together with the journalist Antonio Nicaso, who participated in the meeting via video link. «We already knew ten years ago – added Gratteri – that there would be a shortage of doctors in Italy. Now I wonder why no one now tracks down the Minister of Health at the time and asks him why no action was taken then to resolve this problem. The truth is that we all have short memories because we live from day to day and no one plans, establishing what is needed in 5 or 10 years from now. This is exactly the drama.”
Then there is politics that “has not understood or still does not want to understand. Minister Nordio says that wiretaps cost too much. Wiretapping costs 170 million euros a year for all Italian prosecutors combined. A figure that in the budget of a ministry is nothing” commented the prosecutor of Naples.