DESPITE THE protests of magistrates, journalists, industrialists, intellectuals, opposition forces and thousands of web bloggers, the Italian government has vowed to proceed with legislation which, critics claim, will favour organised crime and muzzle the media.
The Bill features proposed legislation on the use of wiretaps in judicial investigations and on the right of the media to publish transcripts of these wiretaps. It is due to come before the senate next Monday.
Following a pattern that has become very familiar under Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government, a vast range of forces, representing different political positions, has come together to protest against the legislation.
Jurist Prof Stefano Rodotà said it represented “an erosion of freedom, a full-frontal attack on liberty . . . touching on one of the fundamentals of democracy”.
While the government argues that the legislation is necessary to combat excesses in the use and publication of transcripts, opposition leaders such as Antonio Di Pietro, leader of the Italy of Values party, argue that it will greatly hamper magistrates investigating organised crime, given that wiretaps have long been fundamental to Mafia investigations.
The government’s proposals would also: limit surveillance of suspected criminals to a 75-day period; ban the publication of wire transcripts; ban the publication of information relative to judicial inquiries until the case comes to court; and approve the use of electronic surveillance only when investigators are convinced a crime is about to be committed.
Critics argue that such legislation, clearly designed to protect the Berlusconi government from the sort of embarrassing revelations which last summer saw the prime minister caught up in a “sexy-party” scandal, is a gift to organised crime.
Experienced Mafia investigator Antonio Ingroia said last week that if the proposed legislation had been in place for the past 20 years, two of the most notorious Mafia godfathers, Totò Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, would never have been captured.
Others to publicly criticise the Bill are Mafia expert and writer Roberto Saviano, the former president of Fiat, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, and former state president Oscar Luigi Scalfaro.
The head of Italian police, Antonio Manganelli, argued last week that wiretaps were one of the few vital investigative tools available to Italian magistrates.
The wiretap issue briefly took on an international dimension last weekend when US assistant attorney general Larry Breuer said he would not want “anything . . . that prevents the Italians from doing as good a job [in combating organised crime] as they have in the past”. Even if Mr Breuer later said he had no intention of interfering in internal Italian affairs, his message was clear.
As for the proposed reporting restrictions, Sky Italia TV has already said it will contest the so-called “gag law” at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.