judges-from-italy

"[Riferendosi al Ministro dell'Interno Antonio Brancaccio] 'St'animale... è un delinquente. (dall'intercettazione telefonica del 9 marzo 1994."

"[Sulla condanna del giudice, poi ribaltata in seguito] Un'esecuzione, una condanna ignobile, un momento di trionfo del neofascismo etico di sinistra."

"La Costituzione vuole il magistrato in toga e non in divisa [...]. Io sono un giudice e mi rifiuto di essere un combattente anche contro la mafia, il mio compito non è quello di lottare."

"Carnevale [...] ha dichiarato in un'intervista [...] che la notte non ha bisogno di sonniferi perché, nei confronti della Legge, la sua coscienza è a posto. Ci crediamo senz'altro. Ma se si ponesse la stessa domanda nei confronti della Giustizia, mi domando se i suoi sonni sarebbero altrettanto tranquilli. E tuttavia ci rendiamo conto che questa domanda non se la porrà mai, e anzi gli sembrerà del tutto stravagante. Perché, per un magistrato italiano, la Legge con la Giustizia non ha nulla a che fare."

"A young judges' advisor at the Court of Appeal of Palermo and the wife of Judge Giovanni Falcone, although fully aware of the grave dangers to which her husband was exposed, she remained constantly by his side, enduring the same hardships and privations, always encouraging and urging him on in the tough fight he had undertaken against the Mafia. Caught up, alongside the magistrate, in a cowardly and brutal ambush, she sacrificed her life, having lived it by combining her deep feelings of affection, esteem and respect for her husband with her dedication to the highest ideals of justice (reason for the award of the Gold Medal for Civil Valour)."

"[Riferendosi a Giovanni Falcone e Paolo Borsellino] Il Csm perché non va a vedere le istruttorie fatte dai due Dioscuri, per vederne il livello di professionalità? (dall'intercettazione telefonica del 20 dicembre 1993)."

"I motivi per cui me ne sono andato non sono per la pressione di quel cretino di Falcone, perché i morti li rispetto... certi morti no. (dall'intercettazione telefonica dell'8 marzo 1994)"

"Happiness is going into town to go shopping with my mum."

"No, I don’t want to think about what might happen to Giovanni; he has to carry on with his work – that’s his life, he couldn’t do without it – and I have to be there for him."

"Gli dissi [a Giovanni Falcone] che i mafiosi erano preoccupati perché non c'era più Carnevale. Carnevale era la nostra roccaforte in Cassazione. È incredibile che faccia ancora il giudice."

"A me Falcone non è mai piaciuto per la verità. (dall'intercettazione telefonica del 20 dicembre 1993)."

"(About the Mani pulite period) No one could delude themselves that five, or even ten years of fighting corruption would change the spirit of the average Italian, their distrust of rules and institutions. The customs of this country are, unfortunately, immovable."

"I am not familiar with the details of the investigation into Parmalat and can only speak in general terms. However, I cannot hide my concern that, from an economic point of view, a period much more dangerous than that of Tangentopoli may be about to begin."

"The crowds always applaud the collapse of idols with sadistic satisfaction."

"(About the period of Mani pulite) When those who had been praising us began to realise that the restoration of legality did not stop at Montedison or Palazzo Chigi, but extended to everyday life, they began to show annoyance and weariness."

"I have always noticed that the only figure defined as ‘unjust’ in the Gospel is that of a judge: and it seemed to me an apt definition. Fascism was less hateful than this robed bureaucracy that used violence in the name of justice. In Italian history, if freedom had prevailed, as I now believe to be certain, the names of the magistrates of Milan, Di Pietro, Borrelli, Davigo, and Boccassini would have been forever ‘signati nigro lapillo’ as figures to be remembered with horror, those of the unjust judge."

"(About the Mani pulite period) At that time, the connection between business and politics, however murky it may have been, did not contradict the fundamental objective of the business world, which is to produce wealth."

"(About the expression of esteem shown to him by Dario Fo with the request to take an interest in the Sofri trial) I don't know what to make of expressions of esteem that are dictated by ideological preconceptions."

"(About the decision of magistrates to stand for election) I do not believe that a magistrate's desire to put their skills at the service of the community, where popular sovereignty is embodied, is a choice that should be condemned."

"(Regarding one of the trials in which Silvio Berlusconi was accused) This is not a political trial, even if it is undeniable that it may have political consequences. But our values are written in the penal code."

"In the face of the dangerous erosion of the general will, the collapse of civic conscience and the loss of the sense of justice, the last, extreme bastion of morality, it is the duty of the community to resist, resist, resist, as if on an unyielding line of the Piave."

"Wiretapping is absolutely essential in the fight against the mafia and terrorism; it is fundamental to understanding the movements of people suspected of serious crimes. Wiretapping mafia members helps us understand who they talk to and how they move. :*Paola Di Caro, Sì alle intercettazioni, non agli abusi, Corriere della Sera, January 18, 2023."

"Legitimate choices are not necessarily appropriate ones. A magistrate must not only be impartial, but must also appear to be impartial."

"I agree with the crisis in justice. Ninety percent of our work is useless because we have Byzantine procedures for prosecuting mountains of crimes. We are grinding water and this is frustrating."

"I believe that no magistrate should ever run for election, and even more so, a public prosecutor who has become famous for political investigations should not do so."

"The mindset of a magistrate is not that of a public administrator. [...] The idea that politics is unable to come up with a name from within its own ranks and must resort to a magistrate is a sign of a deep crisis."

"(About wiretaps) Their dissemination, sometimes selective and perhaps manipulated, is a deadly tool for personal and often political delegitimization. These are substantial, almost blasphemous violations of Article 15 of the Constitution, which establishes the secrecy of communications as an interface of freedom."

"Aiding and abetting does not exist as a crime; it is a creation of jurisprudence. That is, the Supreme Court, the judges, invented this rather evanescent formula, which, strictly speaking, I would call “Popperian,” is an oxymoron. Because the concept of external complicity is contradictory, hence the oxymoron, because if you are a competitor, you are not external, and if you are external, you are not a competitor. Of course, when you discuss all these things from a technical point of view, you find ideological and emotional answers. We do not want to eliminate it; we know very well that you can be a mafioso within the organization and you can be an accomplice outside the organization, but then the crime needs to be completely redefined, which at the moment does not exist either as a specific or a specific offense because it is not in the code. (July 11, 2023)"

"This book should be studied at the High School of the Judiciary (referring to the book entitled ‘'Il mostro’' by Matteo Renzi)."

"(Regarding the separation of careers between penal prosecutors and judges and its relatiosnhip with the "Plan for Democratic Rebirth) I am not familiar with the P2 plan. I can say that if Mr. Licio Gelli's interpretation, or rather opinion, was a correct opinion, there is no reason why it should not be followed just because he said so. Truths do not depend on who proclaims them, but on the objectivity they represent."

"Once in San Vittore, I met a Chilean pickpocket. He had been arrested four times in a month. He greeted me with a smile: “What a beautiful country, Italy!” He had previously been arrested in Ottawa and had spent two years in prison."

"Italy is the European country with the lowest number of prisoners in relation to its population. And it is the country of the Mafia, the 'Ndrangheta, the Camorra, the Sacra Corona, and widespread corruption. Of course we need new prisons. With borders now disappearing, countries with stronger criminal repression export crime; those with weaker criminal repression import it."

"In my opinion, magistrates should never be involved in politics. This is because they are chosen on the basis of competence, and having guarantees, they are not used to following the criterion of representation. This is why magistrates are often terrible politicians."

"[Regarding the system of contracts negotiated between parties and companies] There are no innocents; there are only guilty parties who have not yet been discovered."

"[“And now?”] They haven’t stopped stealing; they’ve stopped being ashamed. They brazenly claim what they used to do in secret. They say things like, “We do what we want with our money.” But it’s not their money; it’s the taxpayers’."

"Forlani made a fool of himself at the Enimont trial. Evidence was found against Craxi, and he was convicted. We did not find evidence against others. The Italian Communist Party was financed by cooperatives in a declared and therefore legitimate manner. But in Milan, where they participated in the distribution of bribes, we put several communist leaders on trial."

"They [the politicians] created this terrible climate. We simply uncovered and prosecuted acts that were defined as crimes by law. Then there are still some who are ashamed and commit suicide."

"Once I was trying to explain amnesty to a group of Californian judges who were asking us why alternative procedures did not work in our country. They understood complex issues, but when we explained that amnesty is a law that forgives everyone, they were convinced that we were joking. You see, Carl Schmitt argued that all concepts of modern European public law are secularized theological concepts. The secularization of plenary indulgence gives rise to amnesty, pardon, and various forms of remission. With one difference: the Church demands repentance, the state does not."

"When Cuccia, president of Mediobanca, was interviewed by journalists after testifying as a person informed of the facts at the Ravenna Public Prosecutor's Office, he replied to a journalist's question about whether Ferruzzi Finanziaria's financial statements were false: “I have never seen one that wasn't.”"

"My colleagues and I tore away the veil of hypocrisy. And that made things worse."

"No one is put in prison to make them talk; they are put out if they talk, which is a different thing. But who would ever give money to someone who, once arrested, lists all those who gave it to them? Or who would ever take money from someone who, when arrested, lists all those they paid? They become unsuitable for committing those crimes: they are no longer dangerous."

"The modern Western state is based on the principle of the separation of powers. The separation of powers makes sense if the disagreements between the powers are physiological, because if they always agreed, there would be no need for the separation of powers. A little bit like the rights of freedom. The rights of freedom were granted in order to be able to speak ill of those in power, because there were already courtiers to speak well of them."

"When there is less money circulating in people's pockets, citizens are more easily outraged."

"After Mario Chiesa's arrest, Craxi said that not a single PSI leader in Milan had been convicted with a final sentence, except for the “mariuolo” (thief). No one burst out laughing. The veil of hypocrisy still held."

"Evidence is needed for a conviction, and only assumptions and circumstantial evidence were presented at the trial. Among these, one seemed decisive to me, but in the opposite direction to that of the prosecution. The findings showed that just below the window from which Pinelli had fallen there was a cornice that the body had chipped on impact. This proved that he had fallen on it. If it had been a defenestration, the defenestrators would have avoided that impact, which could have compromised the outcome."

"In Italy, it pays to break the law because the law protects those who break it much more than those who suffer from its violations."

"Italy had so many appeals to the European Court of Human Rights against the unreasonable length of trials that the European Court, which had said that a trial should be considered unreasonable if it took more than two and a half years from the start to the first instance ruling, had to raise this assessment to three years because it could no longer manage to deliver judgments in two and a half years due to being overwhelmed by appeals from Italy. This explains why they get angry with us."

"The difference between a citizen and a subject is this: a citizen has few obligations and few prohibitions imposed on them, and if they respect these, they are a free person; a subject is a person on whom millions of obligations and prohibitions are imposed, the violation of which is usually tolerated, but if they raise their head, they are given a list of all the violations they have committed up to that point."

"But why does the Milan railway link cost twice as much as the one in Zurich and, after twenty years, still not be finished? [...] And why, after the arrests, were the subsequent contracts awarded at a 40% discount compared to before? They said it cost more because the water table was high... It seems that arrests lower the water table!"

"In Italy, it pays to be a criminal."