The Academy is also divided on career separation

The separation of careers also splits the academy. The doctors of criminal procedure are divided over constitutional reform. On the one hand, the Association of Criminal Procedure Lawyers has approved, by a majority, a document of adhesion to the reasons and contents of the intervention, on the other hand, a text signed by 42 professors from various universities that instead challenges them.

Diametrically opposed are the readings of one of the key issues underlying the necessity of the reform, consistency with the principles of due process and with an accusatory procedural model. For the Association's document (but the 42 signatories of the alternative document complain about the lack of consultation of the members) "there seems to be no doubt that the maximum achievable result within a system that wants to keep the bureaucratic structure of the judiciary firm, also passes through the separation of the institutional organisation between judges and prosecutors, so as to avoid (even the suspicion) that the solidarity arising from the sharing of views, interests, career prospects within the unitary body, managed by a common autonomous governing body, might obscure the necessaryequidistance of the judge with respect to both sides of the case".

The criminal accusatory code of procedure (1987-1989) lacked the 'further step' aimed at separating the public prosecutor from the judge on the level of judicial organisation; as well as blurring, downstream of the constitutional revision on due process, the opportunity to introduce a more rigorous protection of the third party status of the judging body.

But, reply the signatories of the alternative document, who call for a scientific approach to the matter, "a careful and not simplistic comparison with European and non-European systems and an unhurried reading of supranational jurisprudence show that there is no necessary correlation between the trial model and career structure and that, in countries with a strong prosecutorial tradition, the professional roots of prosecutors, lawyers and judges are common".

And then, reminded that the reform is not able to provide any concrete answer to the problems that afflict the 'agonising' criminal trial, first and foremost its duration, the constitutional amendment risks leading to a genetic change of the figure of the public prosecutor, on the one hand significantly strengthening it, on the other hand crushing it on 'mere instances of repression'. A regression that will then be to the detriment, it is emphasised, of the guarantees for all suspects and defendants, especially for those without significant financial resources.