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«The complaint is admissible since the prejudice currently suffered in the exercise of the right to maintain family relationships is deducted». It is his right – and must be respected by the prison administration which prevented him and had previously even denied him – to be able to talk via video call with his family members. No preclusion therefore despite being burdened by the “hard prison” regime due to his past at the top of the ‘Ndrangheta in Reggio Calabria; the only, obvious, requirement will be to respect “the organizational measures usually adopted up to now in the event of previous similar provisions of the supervisory judiciary”.
The Surveillance Magistrate of Viterbo agreed with Pasquale Tegano, one of the leading brothers of the historic and powerful ‘ndrangheta family of Archi, in accepting the complaint presented by his defenders, the lawyers Giacomo Iaria and Antonella Modaffari.
Specifically, the 71-year-old from Reggio complained about the Dap’s previous rejection of his request to carry out a visual interview via videoconference with his family members, asking “to overcome the need for the existence of a condition of impossibility or serious difficulty in carrying out the interview in person” as imposed by the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court.
Indeed, in the midst of the Covid emergency, the “ermine” judges (ruling of 22 June 2020) affirmed “the practicability” of the telematic method for carrying out interviews with family members by prisoners subject to the “41 bis” regime, “subordinating the same to the occurrence of a condition of impossibility or serious difficulty in carrying out the interviews in person”.
As argued by Pasquale Tegano’s defence, the legitimate need to ensure security standards has been largely overcome: «The Court observes that the electronic means presented by the Penitentiary Administration has been technically validated as regards the security profile, by the penitentiary IT service of the general directorate of personnel and resources of the Dap and the DGSIA and notes that the identified platform – Skype for business – still allows for the adoption of all the necessary precautions to prevent the risk of undue communications with the outside such as registration, conservation and remote monitoring of a conversation which, taking place between penitentiary institutions, would still take place between fully identified people as happens with in-person interviews”.
The judges themselves observed how the usual considerable distance between the place of detention of the prisoner under maximum security regime and that of his family members «can easily be considered a condition of considerable difficulty in carrying out face-to-face interviews – which in fact are rarely carried out in the permitted number -. and that the multi-year telematic practice has not revealed any critical issues known and specifically deduced by the Dap” and that otherwise, in addition to facilitating the maintenance of relationships between the prisoner and fragile family members (sick, elderly, minors), it also presents the undoubted advantage constituted by the material impossibility of introducing and transmitting unauthorized objects.
Legal considerations which will now allow Pasquale Tegano to be able to carry out the interviews via video link.