Agreement signed in Milan for information on court measures

Of course, it is only a suggestion dictated by coincidence but, while in Rome the Council of Ministers approved the new clampdown on the publication of judicial acts, the agreement on judicial information was presented in Milan, which aims to make a fundamental junction of the media system more transparent. A document that, for the first time in reality between judicial offices, saw all the stakeholders of the criminal process converge: magistrates, lawyers and journalists.

The protocol was signed by the President of the Court Fabio Roia, the Prosecutor Marcello Viola, the President of the Lombardy Order of Journalists Riccardo Sorrentino and the lawyers Antonino La Lumia, President of the Milan Bar Association and Valentina Alberta President of the Criminal Chamber.

In detail, with a legally unexceptionable approach, the protocol stresses, with regard to the publication in full or in excerpts of thecustodial custody orders (the subject of the decree approved, on Monday 9 December, by the Council of Ministers, which broadens the area of the prohibition to include all personal precautionary measures) that the prohibition wanted by the government "is a precept that concerns the journalist, who, however, also in the interest of correct and equal information, may need the original document".

For this reason, the President of the Court, Roia, has undertaken to do so in the next few days, he will adopt an authorisation measure 'with which - at the outcome of the execution and communication to all the parties of the measure adopted by the Gip or the Court - he may authorise the transmission of the measure to the accredited journalists and to other communication operators who request it, in the presence of the requirements set out in Article 116 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the recurrence of which will also be assessed on the basis of the decalogue prepared by the Order of Journalists'.

And in fact, the protocol includes a moonlight exemplification on the notion of interest in acquiring a copy of the acts: when the crime under investigation is very serious or has characteristics that affect the daily life of a community, a city or national civil life or when there is a connection between the position of a well-known person, even locally or in restricted circles, but relevant to social life, and the crime of which he is accused or if the crime of which a person is accused is contrary to his public image. And again, when an arrest has been made in flagrante delicto or an arrest warrant has been issued and in any case, as a function of the exercise of democratic control, when the action of the judiciary exercises forms of restriction on personal freedom.