Family in the woods, no disciplinary offence for magistrates

At the outcome of the enquiry into the family in the woods ordered by the Minister of Justice, 'no profiles of disciplinary offences by magistrates have emerged'. The Minister of Justice, Carlo Nordio, announced in a note that he had orderedthe archiving of the investigation. With a further clarification from Via Arenula, "the decisions of merit in deference to the independence and autonomy of the judiciary are notthe object of assessment". The judges' actions had ended up in the minister's crosshairs, giving rise to an institutional clash.

The L'Aquila Juvenile Court and the National Association of Magistrates had denounced, after the decision to start the procedure to send inspectors, the interferences of the ministry on the judges' work. Even then, the president of the Juvenile Court of L'Aquila, Cecilia Angrisano, and the public prosecutor, David Mancini, had sent a note denouncing the "aggressive and non-continuous tones" after the various speeches considered to be an attack on the togas involved in the proceedings. Including that of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who in a television interview on 8 March had spoken of 'ideological readings' by the judiciary.

Hence the response note of the L'Aquila Juvenile Office's top management, which explained the reasons for their action: 'In view of the media clamour aroused by recent judicial events, still in the preliminary investigation phase and commented by several parties, even with aggressive and non-continuous tones, it is the concern of the magistrates working at the juvenile judicial offices, and in particular at the Juvenile Court of L'Aquila and at the Juvenile Public Prosecutor's Office of L'Aquila, to affirm that any judicial initiative within their jurisdiction is exclusively inspired by the principles of protection of the rights of persons under the age of 18, as enshrined in the Constitution and in the sources of international law".

The ministry, by sending inspectors and initiating disciplinary proceedings, in the wake of the controversy over the intervention of the judicial authority, had intervened on the removal of children from their parents and on how to protect the rights of minors.

The National Association of Magistrates takes note of the filing: 'The magistrates of the Juvenile Court of L'Aquila did their work with fairness and transparency, respecting laws and procedures. This was also certified by the Ministry of Justice in the inspectors' report. We take note of this - writes the ANM - and we renew our closeness to our colleagues who in recent months have been subject to systematic attacks for simply having done their duty on a case that was the focus of political attention"