On the roadblock the squeeze is not retroactive

The tightening of the road blockade decided in the recent Security Decree is not retroactive. This was emphasised by the Court of Cassation in ruling No. 37466 of the First Criminal Section, filed on Tuesday 18 November. The Court thus annulled without referral, because the fact does not exist, the conviction received at first instance and then confirmed on appeal, against an activist of an environmental association, disrespectful of the travel warrant issued by the police commissioner in 2022.

The Court of Appeal had rejected all the grounds for appeal, because the conduct of the defendant, having repeatedly carried out unannounced protest demonstrations, in particular occupying, on two occasions, the public highway, blocking traffic for about an hour on the Milan ring road, legitimised the Quaestor's assessment of dangerousness for public safety, 'being conduct likely to disrupt order and safety itself and to create the conditions for an interruption of a public service, also preventing ambulances and other emergency vehicles from passing through'. The consequent limitation to the travel warrant was deemed proportionate to the need for protection of the community.

However, the Court of Cassation upheld the appeal, stating that a generic assessment of dangerousness was not enough. The judges of merit, in fact, did not take into account the rule of the Anti-Mafia Code on the requirement to comply with the "foglio di via" (Article 1, paragraph 1, letter c) of Legislative Decree 159/2011), which only concerns subjects who cause disturbance to tranquillity and security by committing 'offences', and not with conduct that does not constitute criminally relevant violations. The Court of Cassation, in fact, the judgment now recalls, has always stated that inclusion in this category of dangerousness requires that the subject has committed, in a non-occasional manner, "criminal acts".

In the case that reached the Court of Cassation, on the other hand, it was not indicated in the order of the police commissioner or even in the judgment whether the conduct described was in the nature of criminal offences or criminal acts, since there were no complaints related to them.

'From their description, it is indeed a matter of conduct constituting administrative violations and lacking, at the time, criminal relevance: the offence referred to in Article 18 of the Consolidated Law on Public Security exists, in the case of unauthorised public meetings, only in the presence of specific conduct, which is not indicated against the applicant'.