Justice: from Barbera to Bettini, all the Yeses that Schlein did not expect. The difficult match of the Pd

Pass for the symbol of Tangentopoli, the former Prosecutor of Milan Antonio Di Pietro, who spoke in favour of the Nordio reform. Pass for the radical Emma Bonino, who has made the separation of careers one of the political battles of her life together with Marco Pannella. And pass also for the centrists Carlo Calenda and Matteo Renzi, who had the issue in the programme of the former Third pole in the 2022 political elections: the leader of Azione has always voted in favour in Parliament and will give indications for the Yes vote in the March/April confirmatory referendum, the leader of Italia Viva preferred to abstain and will leave freedom of vote. But the political result is the same: as it happened last June for the abrogative referendum against the renzian Jobs act, failed for failure to reach the quorum, the front of the no - PD, M5s and Avs with the help of the 'troops' of Maurizio Landini's CGIL - is completely missing the centre.

Passes for the pro-reform positions of Nordio to the right of the wide field, then, which does not fall within the Dem jurisdiction. But the fact is that the yes that you do not expect are also growing within the PD: a political fact that certainly does not please the secretary Elly Schlein and that undermines the commitment of the entire party in what - despite the denials - is the last real political battle against the Meloni government before the 2027 general elections. On the other hand, the issue of the separation of careers has long been present in the debate of the democrats, so much so that it appeared in Maurizio Martina's motion at the 2019 congress then won by Nicola Zingaretti: not only the 'liberal' heirs of Giorgio Napolitano's migliorismo gathered in the LibertàEguale association, who have in fact lined up for the Yes vote - from Enrico Morando to Stefano Ceccanti, from Giorgio Tonini to Claudia Mancina - but also personalities from the left of the party such as the Roman Pd bigwig Goffredo Bettini and personalities from the Pci-Ds tradition such as Cesare Salvi and Claudio Petruccioli, who recalled how the division of the Csm into two was also voted by the Bicameral Committee chaired by Massimo D'Alema in 1996/97 (with the favourable vote, among others, of the current President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella).

Of all of them, the strongest blow was struck by the president emeritus of the Constitutional Court Augusto Barbera, former member of parliament of the PCI and PDS and minister in the Ciampi government in the early 1990s. "It is useless to go around it. The reform of justice we are talking about is a liberal reform that became inevitable after the so-called Vassalli reform (the delegated law no. 81 of 1987) that had dismantled the old authoritarian code and introduced the accusatory system", Barbera's lunge in an article in the Foglio in which he also recalls the reform by a very large majority in 1999 of Article 111 of the Constitution that introduced the principle of "due process" in the contradictory between the parties "on equal terms" before a "third and impartial" judge. As if to say that the Nordio reform is an inevitable consequence of those shared choices and that, if anything, it comes too late.

A panorama, that of those in favour of the separation of careers on the left, on which the difficult position of the reformists doc (to be clear, those who - from Lorenzo Guerini to Giorgio Gori - at the end of October with the Milan conference 'Crescere' broke away from the Popular Energy minority that refers to the PD president Stefano Bonaccini). They have always voted no in the House and are preparing to do the same in the confirmatory referendum. But it is a fact that on the first major political issue on the agenda, the current that has just emerged to mark the difference with Schlein's political line avoids distinguishing itself, limiting itself to hoping for a confrontation in the party 'on how it intends to stand in the referendum campaign'. A sign if not of weakness, at least of a misjudgement of the timing for the launch of the first real current of internal opposition to the secretary. But the next few days will hold surprises in store: MEP Pina Picierno, the ultra-European pasionaria, seems in fact oriented to publicly line up for the Yes vote in dissent from her current comrades Guerini and Gori, given her historical guaranteeist positions and in favour of the separation of careers. And she may not be the only one.

And Schlein? The secretary certainly knows that she does not have a compact phalanx behind her and she also knows, as does the prime minister Giorgia Meloni, that the confirmatory referendum is in itself full of unknowns since there is no quorum: the winner will be the one who knows how to mobilise their voters. Hence the cautious tones, the invitation not to personalise and the attempt to distinguish the referendum campaign of the PD from that of the other left-wing parties: no defence of magistrates as such, no longer popular as at the time of Tangentopoli, yes defence of the Constitution and its balance of powers. What is more: 'This is a reform that does not solve the endemic problems of justice, starting with the length of trials, and therefore does not go towards citizens and businesses,' is the refrain from Largo del Nazareno. A bit like walking on eggs....