Separation of careers, green light from the Cabinet: here are the key points. Nordio: stop current affairs degeneration

Separation of careers between prosecutors and judges, two Judicial Councils both presided over by the Head of State and a High Disciplinary Court. There are all the measures announced, and at the centre of the debate in recent months, in the constitutional reform of the judiciary - which bears the signature of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the Guardasigilli Carlo Nordio, who considers the passage "epochal" - to which a lightning-fast Council of Ministers today gave the go-ahead. On the other hand, there is not the purely hypothesised intervention to eliminate the compulsory nature of criminal prosecution, i.e. the obligation for a prosecutor to investigate every time he becomes aware of a report of a crime. A point emphasised by the Justice Minister: 'We have maintained it, whereas in some Anglo-Saxon systems it is discretionary, precisely because we have accepted the observations made by the ANM'. Although, concluded Nordio, 'we know that this mandatory nature very often turns into discretionary or even arbitrary'.

There are eight articles of the reform, with amendments to Article 87 of the Constitution and the entire Title IV, entitled 'The Judiciary'. Here is what it provides for. Article 1 intervenes on the powers and prerogatives of the President of the Republic - who is also President of the SCC - and with the OK of the constitutional reform will preside over the Superior Council of the Judiciary 'judiciary' and the 'requirente'. Article 2 intervenes on Article 102 of the Charter, and is the heart of the reform, providing for 'distinct careers of judges and prosecutors'.

Article 3, on the other hand, amends Article 104 of the Constitution, and concerns the composition and method of appointment of the members of the Judicial and Prosecutorial Councils: both are chaired by the Head of State, remain in office for four years and include, respectively, the first president of the Supreme Court of Cassation and the Attorney General; the other members - and this is one of the points in the balance up to the eve of the elections - are drawn by means of a "tempered" lottery. They are drawn by lot, one-third from a list of ordinary university professors in legal subjects and lawyers after fifteen years of practice, which the Parliament in common session, within six months of taking office, compiles by means of an election, and two-thirds from among judges and prosecutors respectively, in the number and according to the procedures provided for by law. It is likely, therefore, that there will be a need for a new ordinary law on this last point.

Article 4 fixes, instead, the powers of the two Councils of Cassation - the recruitment, assignments, transfers, professionalism evaluations and assignments of functions with respect to magistrates remain unchanged - while and entrusts the competence over disciplinary decisions to a High Disciplinary Court composed of fifteen judges, three presidentially appointed, three drawn by lot from a list prepared by Parliament, six judges and three prosecutors drawn by lot. Article 5 amends Article 106 of the Constitution: upon nomination by the Superior Council of the Magistracy, "magistrates belonging to the investigating magistracy with at least fifteen years in office" may be called to the office of cassation counsellor for distinguished merits. Articles 6 and 7 make drafting changes to the Constitution resulting from the establishment of the two separate SCMs. Finally, Article 8 provides for transitional provisions: the new provisions on the Superior Council of the Magistracy, the judicial system and disciplinary jurisdiction "shall be adapted to the provisions of this Constitutional Law within one year of its entry into force".

The self-governing body of the judiciary in recent years 'not only in my opinion or that of other members of the majority but of many magistrates, has not given good proof of itself and scandals such as those of Palamara or others have aroused various protests' that have not led to 'remedies to those of current degeneration'. Nordio therefore recalls the need to 'break this link' that 'has led to a whole series of anomalies through the draw'.