The confirmation of the dissolution of the Tropea municipal council due to mafia infiltration is definitive. The Third Section of the Council of State rejected the appeal presented by the former mayor and other former administrators, city councilors and voters, confirming the full legitimacy of the decree adopted by the government.
With the decision of the administrative judges, the commissioner’s management is thus definitively confirmed, which will remain in office until the natural expiration of the mandate.
The reasons for the sentence
The Council of State considered all the complaints raised against the previous ruling of the Lazio Regional Administrative Court to be unfounded, reiterating that the dissolution of local authorities due to mafia has a precautionary and preventive function, aimed at interrupting situations of conditioning of administrative activity by organized crime.
According to the judges, the measure is not punitive in nature and does not require the ascertainment of individual criminal responsibility, as it can be based on a set of concrete, unambiguous and relevant circumstantial elements.
The framework of permeability to gangs
From the investigation, a picture emerged of the Municipality’s permeability to the influences of the ‘Ndrangheta, through a network of personal, family and electoral ties involving administrators, officials and subjects believed to belong to or be contiguous to a gang historically rooted in the Tropea area and connected to a larger criminal structure operating in the Vibonese area.
Reliances and irregularities
The judges pointed out irregularities in the awarding of works and services, often in favor of companies considered to be close to the gangs, the repeated use of extremely urgent procedures, anomalies in the awarding of contracts in the catering sector for institutional events and a management considered ineffective or omission of building controls.
Critical issues in the management of municipal staff are also reported, including the case of the cemetery service, indicated as emblematic of a more general administrative dysfunction.