Security Decree, rights are not guaranteed in preventive detention

Criticism from a plurality of points of view. From strictly organisational ones for judicial offices to respect for fundamental freedoms. In the opinion on the security decree to be voted on by the SCC, the measure, now being examined by the Senate, was examined for all the profiles affecting the administration of justice.

Among these, the introduction of the preventive detention: there is no doubt, the opinion puts it in black and white, that 'the accompaniment of the "detained" person to the police station and the related detention for up to twelve hours, entailing a compulsion on the person to remain in a certain place for an appreciable period of time, as well as precluding him/her from participate in the demonstration (thus limiting the constitutional freedoms of assembly and expression of thought), also integrate that "mortification of human dignity that occurs in every instance of physical subjection to the power of others" (in this sense cf. constitutional Court ruling no. 105 of 2001, concerning the detention of migrants in temporary reception centres) and, therefore, a form of "restriction of personal freedom" within the meaning of Article 13 paragraph 3 of the Constitution".

And then, in the opinion of the SCC, there should at least be specific obligations to record and justify the actions of the judicial police to enable the public prosecutor to carry out an effective control of legality.

Susceptible to possible drifts towards a model of dangerousness detached from concrete conduct and even more susceptible to friction with the obligations of respect for human rights assumed by Italy is the excessively discretionary provision of the 'well-founded reason to believe' that the person detained may engage in conduct that poses a concrete danger to public order and security during the event.

Thus, 'the newly-created provision, while meeting a need for prevention of violent disturbances caused during public demonstrations, moves along a very constitutionally sensitive line, so that, for the purposes of its compatibility with Articles 13, 17 and 21 of the Constitution and Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, it seems desirable that, at the time of conversion, the amendments needed to bring the new institution into line with the constitutional and supranational principles be made'.