Fabio Roia: 'Divorce is only really short if the court has resources'
For the president of the Court of Milan, the presence of judges and administrative staff to devote to family litigation makes a difference
2' min read
2' min read
In 50 years, how many things have changed in courtrooms?
The laws that now protect women's rights have changed,' explains the president of the Court of Milan, Fabio Roia, 'the judicial approach to all issues concerning the abuse of the female gender in all social articulations has changed. We are in the presence of a strong trend reversal and of a process that, however, presents characteristics of intermittence, in the sense that a real culture of respect for the victim of gender violence has not yet matured, persisting unbearable stereotypes on this problem that has historical, widespread and structural roots. Certainly the divorce law represented a decisive turnaround in a society where the relationship had to be accepted and endured even if violent, with the woman placed in a role of family subordination.
Is the short divorce really as short as envisaged on paper or is it less so in practice?
It depends on the resources that each court is able to commit in the area of family litigation. I refer, in particular, to the number of judges and administrative support staff. We are faced with the protection of primary rights that must be guaranteed through intelligent forms of Court organisation.
Are many women victims of domestic violence filing for divorce? Or do those who are abused find it hard to leave?
When women decide to dissolve the bond it means that they have matured the conviction to denounce and thus to dissolve a toxic bond that was suffocating them. Almost always, the path is difficult, fluctuating, and expressive of inner suffering. The presence of Anti-Violence Centres and structures dedicated to listening to and sharing the suffering of the woman subjected to violence are necessary aid agencies to get out of the circuit of violence.
How much does it cost today to get divorced?
It should not cost anything but in fact the assistance of a lawyer, when the mechanisms for legal aid are not triggered, must rightly be paid according to professional fees. I said it should not cost anything because I consider that to give up divorcing for economic reasons is unacceptable in terms of the protection of rights.
Is there a change of pace on the part of men in accepting that it is the woman who ends the marriage?
Only partially do there remain traces, even substantial ones, of cultural legacies whereby the woman who unilaterally breaks the bond behaves as a provocation factor to 'machismo'. One of the primary causes of feminicides is to be found precisely in the man's non-acceptance of the woman's unilateral decision to break the bond, even if violent. In this attitude we can read a proprietary conception of women on the part of men that is struggling to disappear.
