Roggero and Nordio received at the Colle: ‘The limits of the minister’s powers regarding pardons have been clarified’

Following pressure from the centre-right and the approval of the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the Minister of Justice, Carlo Nordio, has launched the preliminary investigation with a view to granting a pardon to Mario Roggero. However, in the afternoon, a statement from the Quirinale announced that the Minister of Justice had been received at the Quirinale by President Sergio Mattarella ‘to clarify the limits of the Minister’s powers regarding the granting of pardons, a prerogative which the Constitution reserves exclusively for the President of the Republic, as confirmed by the Constitutional Court in its ruling 200 of 2006’.

Sources at the Quirinale point out that this is not a matter of substance regarding the pardon for the Piedmontese jeweller, not least because the grounds for the Court of Cassation’s ruling on the Roggero case have not yet been made public; consequently, any discussion of whether or not to grant a pardon is entirely premature. However, it is strictly a matter of procedure, concerning the powers of the President of the Republic, as set out in the Constitution. As stated in Judgment No. 200 of 2006, referred to in the Quirinale’s press release, it is ‘expressly recognised that a pardon may be granted even in the absence of an application’, but ‘in any case, the initiative may be taken directly by the President of the Republic, to whom this power has long been recognised’. According to ANSA, during the meeting, President Mattarella reportedly repeated to Minister Nordio the words of Luigi Einaudi: ‘It is the duty of the President of the Republic to avoid setting precedents whereby it happens, or appears to happen, that he does not pass on to his successor, free from any blemish, the powers conferred upon him by the Constitution.’

According to the ministry in Via Arenula, the opening of a preliminary investigation into the 72-year-old jeweller from Grinzane Cavour – who has just been definitively sentenced by the Court of Cassation to 14 years and 9 months’ imprisonment for chasing and killing two thieves following thethe raid on his shop in April 2021, was initiated ex officio, at the instigation of the Minister of Justice, pursuant to paragraph 4 of Article 681 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (‘A pardon may be granted even in the absence of an application or proposal’). Earlier this morning, the group leaders in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate from Fratelli d’Italia, the Lega, Forza Italia, Noi Moderati, Civici d’Italia, UDC and Maie-Centro Popolare had begun collecting signatures from all MPs in their respective groups, as well as from anyone else wishing to sign, specifically to submit the request to the Ministry of Justice.

“We believe,” reads a joint statement, “that, setting aside the legal aspects, what happened to Roggero deserves an immediate response aimed at ensuring that he does not face what, particularly given his age, would amount to a life sentence – an unbearable prospect in light of what has happened”.

Against the backdrop of this affair, the centre-right is therefore rallying together, on the day the Chamber of Deputies gave the green light to the electoral reform, following the stark divisions over the amendment concerning preferential votes.