«I am against the separation of careers for several reasons. The first, and common sense, is that it is already there: in the last period 0.0036% of magistrates – a reverse Bulgarian percentage – have become prosecutors or vice versa, in a different region. Second: the reform is the first step of a direct path to subjecting the prosecutor to politics which will first indicate which crimes to prosecute and then how to control the exercise of criminal action. Politicians are intolerant of legality control.” Nicola Gratteri, chief prosecutor of Naples, stated this in an interview with Il Fatto Quotidiano.
«The problems that most affect justice are – he adds -: length of trials and prison as a place of punishment. The separation of careers is neither one nor the other.” According to the government, holding a referendum campaign would be “on the margins of constitutionality”, given that, as Deputy Minister Sisto recalled, “there are rules on the possibility for magistrates to engage in politics”. “It amazes me that Sisto – who is a man of the law – wants to affect two fundamental rights such as freedom of thought and freedom to express it, rights which for magistrates already suffer from limitations by law or regulation of the CSM, but not from that of opportunity proposed by the deputy minister”. «I am a false objective – continues Gratteri -, a personalization instrumental to avoiding the debate. Those who advocate the separation of careers as a panacea do not take into account the lives of citizens.”
Is politics taking advantage of this to ‘settle scores’ with the judiciary? This is a reform wanted over the years by Craxi, Gelli and Berlusconi… «It is not a settling of scores – the magistrate continues – it is the intolerance to the control of legality common to all governments of the last twenty years which, with a series of interventions, have created an area of impunity or increasingly weakened responsibility through two instruments: the modification of the Criminal Code and the introduction of means, some of which are guarantees, which create delays in the process». What initiatives will you take for the No vote? «Talking to people about legality. Obviously with my style, my vocabulary” concludes Gratteri.