Former Ilva, the Supreme Court rejects the appeals. The trial on the environmental disaster remains in Potenza

The 'Ambiente Svenduto' trial concerning the crime of environmental disaster contested against Ilva under the Riva management remains in Potenza. This was decided in the evening of 17 December by the Court of Cassation, first criminal section, which ruled inadmissible the appeals presented by Codacons and the Aidma association.

The trial was transferred to Potenza following last September's ruling by the Taranto Court of Assizes of Appeal, which cancelled the sentence, with several convictions, issued by first instance judges at the end of May 2021. The trial was transferred to Potenza because the Court of Assizes of Appeal objected to the fact that among the more than one thousand civil parties in 'Ambiente Svenduto' were also two former honorary magistrates of Taranto.

Both of them, although they had long since left their posts, were nevertheless in service at the time when the facts alleged in the trial occurred. For the second instance panel, 'the ordinary rules on jurisdiction in the case of persons now deprived of judicial functions' apply 'only at the time of the commission of the act'. And 'therefore, contrary to the assumptions of the Court of Assizes, what matters most is the existence of the subjective qualification at the time of the fact, or subsequent to it at the time when the proceedings are pending, its subsequent changes prior to the commencement of the criminal proceedings (2010) being irrelevant'.

A similar pronouncement was made in mid-October by the gip of Potenza, Ida Iure, who confirmed the trial in the capital of Basilicata. For gip Iure, in fact, 'both honorary judges acted to obtain compensation for the damages resulting from the unlawful conduct of the defendants in any capacity involved in the illegal activity carried out by Ilva both in their capacity as managers of the steel plant and as public officials who, in the exercise of their duties, had made it possible for Ilva to continue producing and polluting. Both of them," noted the gip Iure, "took action to obtain compensation for damages caused by criminal conduct that continued in Taranto from 1995 to 20 June 2013. Both - argued the judge regarding the incompatibility that caused the continuity of the trial in Taranto to lapse, moving it to Potenza - carried out their duties as honorary judge at the Court of Taranto'. And 'both were in service 'at the time of the fact''.