CHE COSA SARA' ESATTAMENTE QUESTO "INDULTO"? PARE CHE GLI INGLESI NON RIESCANO A TROVARE IL TERMINE CORRISPONDENTE: CHE SIA UN ISTITUTO SCONOSCIUTO COME IL "CONDONO"?
L'INDULTO ITALIANO NON E' UN'"AMNESTY" (cfr.: "FINANCIAL TIMES"), CHE CORRISPONDE ALL'AMNISTIA, E NON E' NEPPURE UN "PARDON" (cfr.: "THE ECONOMIST"), CHE ASSOMIGLIA PIU' ALLA GRAZIA (1):
Financial Times, By Tony Barber in Rome, July 27, 2006:
"Il voto di giovedi' sull'indulto ("AMNESTY")... La misura che rimettera' in liberta' circa 12.000 detenuti nelle sovraffollatissime carceri italiane, e' stata votata alla Camera da 460 deputati favorevoli, 94 contrari, 18 astenuti"
The Economist, Jul 27th 2006:
TITOLO:
L'italia e la legge
Perche' non far uscire tutti?
La divina propensione dell'Italia per il perdono
Un progetto di indulto ("PARDON")
DOPO AVER RACCONTATO DELLE SCANDALOSE SENTENZE D'APPELLO PER CALCIOPOLI, L'ECONOMIST SCRIVE:
"Una simile generosita' nei confronti dei condannati non e' l'unico segno dell'apparentemente infinita capacita' degli italiani di perdonarsi l'un l'altro. Al momento il Parlamento italiano sta discutendo un disegno di legge per un indulto ("PARDON") di massa...
Allora e' giusto imbrogliare? A quanto pare, in Italia, non farlo sarebbe da stupidi".
(1)
Secondo l'"Oxford Dictionary of Law", "AMNESTY" e' un atto che cancella dalla memoria legale il reato compiuto da una persona. Viene di solito concesso a intere categorie di persone, generalmente con riguardo a reati di tipo politico, ed e' piu' ampio di un "PARDON", che cancella soltanto la pena. Corrisponde quindi all'AMNISTIA italiana.
Il "PARDON" e' la cancellazione di una sentenza o di una pena da parte del sovrano grazie alla sua prerogativa di grazia. Una volta ottenuto il "PARDON", l'accusato non puo 'piu' essere processato e, se e' gia' stato condannato, non puo' essere sottoposto alla pena. Tuttavia e' su di lui che grava la responsabilita' di invocare il "PARDON" per impedire il processo, o per evitare la pena; se non lo fa tempestivamente, si puo' legittimamente ritenere che vi abbia rinunciato. Non corrisponde quindi all'indulto.
Infine una persona puo' anche ottenere un "REPRIEVE", cioe' la sospensione temporanea della pena, per esempio per infermita' mentale intervenuta dopo la pronuncia della sentenza definitiva.
Nessuno di questi termini tecnici traduce pero' il termine tecnico italiano "INDULTO".
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From THE ECONOMIST print edition
Italy and the law
Why not let everyone off?
Italy's divine propensity for forgiveness
Jul 27th 2006
A plan for a pardon
"THE moral that emerges really is a nasty one," said a leading centre-right politician, Maurizio Gasparri. "People will think it's all right to cheat." He was referring to the outcome this week of an appeal by four of Italy's leading football clubs against penalties imposed for their involvement in match-fixing. On July 14th, just after Italy's national team had triumphantly brought home the World Cup, a sporting tribunal won the country sincere, if bemused, admiration when it imposed hefty sentences on the four clubs, which among them provided over half the players for the national squad. Juventus, whose executives organised the match-fixing ring, was relegated to the second division, and told that it would begin the next season with a 30-point handicap.
But this week, after hearing from Juventus's lawyer that such a punishment would be financially disastrous, an appeal panel cut the points deduction by half. Two other sides facing relegation won even better treatment: they were allowed to stay in the first division, as well as having their points penalties cut. Silvio Berlusconi's club, AC Milan, has even had its sentence adjusted so that it can take part in the next European Champions' League.
Such generosity towards the convicted is not the only sign of Italians' seemingly limitless capacity for forgiving one another. The Italian parliament is currently debating a proposal for a mass pardon that would reduce past sentences for all but the worst crimes by three years. This is the centre-left government's response to prison overcrowding. Italy's jails, designed for 42,000 inmates, now hold over 61,000. But to get its mass pardon (which might free as many as 16,000 people) through, the government needs a two-thirds majority in parliament. That means winning support from the centre-right opposition, led by Mr Berlusconi. So it has framed the pardon to include people convicted of such offences as fraud and corruption.
This could be good news for Mr Berlusconi's former lawyer, Cesare Previti, who has been sentenced to six years for bribing judges, because he could serve out the remainder of his sentence doing social work. But Antonio Di Pietro, a former anti-corruption prosecutor who is now a government minister, says the small print would also mean reduced sentences for anyone accused of offences committed before May 2nd but not yet tried.
That could include Mr Berlusconi himself, since he has just been indicted yet again, this time on charges of embezzlement, false accounting and tax dodging. It might also be helpful to those who are on trial for the giant Parmalat fraud of 2003 that gave Italy such a decidedly unsavoury reputation among foreign investors. All right to cheat? In Italy, it seems, you'd be crazy not to.
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FINANCIAL TIMES
Proposed pardon of Italian criminals raises eyebrows
By Tony Barber in Rome
Published: July 25 2006 19:27 | Last updated: July 25 2006 19:27
A dispute over a proposed amnesty for white-collar Italian criminals, including a close friend of Silvio Berlusconi, the former premier, exposed fresh divisions on Tuesday in the young centre-left government.
Antonio Di Pietro, a former anti-corruption prosecutor who leads one of nine parties in the ruling coalition of Romano Prodi, prime minister, said it was shameful that the government was willing to help people guilty of serious crimes.
Mr Di Pietro, Italy’s infrastructure minister, suspended himself from his duties on Monday in protest at the planned amnesty. He has threatened to withdraw his party, Italy of Values, from the government if parliament passes the measure.
Such a move could cripple the government, which stretches from moderate Catholics to hardline communists, and which is already under strain after two months in office because of arguments over Italy’s military involvement in Afghanistan.
As his supporters rallied outside parliament on Tuesday in protest at the amnesty, Mr Di Pietro told them: “The purpose of the amnesty is to make citizens believe that the prisons are being emptied.
“But in reality people are being set free who have committed very grave crimes, and who are once again being allowed to beat the rap. I’m sorry to say that this whitewash is coming from the centre-left coalition itself.”
Most of Mr Prodi’s ministers support the amnesty on the grounds that it will alleviate conditions in Italy’s overcrowded prisons, where about 61,000 inmates are being held in 205 institutions whose official capacity is only 42,000. But the amnesty requires a two-thirds majority in parliament to become law, a hurdle the government cannot clear unless substantial numbers of the Berlusconi-led opposition support the measure.
To ensure their backing, the government has crafted the proposal so that it covers not only small-time crimes but – for the first time in Italian history – serious financial corruption in the public and private sectors.
In this form, the amnesty would benefit Cesare Previti, Mr Berlusconi’s former personal lawyer and defence minister. Mr Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party was upset when a Milan appeals court convicted Mr Previti of bribing judges in a case involving the Berlusconi family’s Fininvest business empire.
The irony of the proposed amnesty’s outcome is not lost on Prodi supporters.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
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FINANCIAL TIMES
Prodi survives test of leadership
By Tony Barber in Rome
Published: July 27 2006 15:24 | Last updated: July 27 2006 15:24
Romano Prodi, Italy’s centre-left premier, survived a test of his leadership on Thursday when he mustered a two-thirds majority in parliament to pass a controversial amnesty for thousands of prisoners in Italian jails.
The vote nevertheless left scars on his nine-party ruling coalition, elected last April, because a number of centre-left legislators broke ranks with Mr Prodi and refused to support the amnesty.
On a measure to extend funding for Italy’s Nato-led military mission in Afghanistan, rebel leftwingers were expected to reluctantly drop their objections and support Mr Prodi in a confidence vote called to ensure that the funding is approved.
The two issues underline the fragility of the Prodi government, which is a motley coalition prone to quarrels on key aspects of economic, social and foreign policy, and which has a wafer-thin majority in the Senate, parliament’s upper house.
In recent days, tensions have risen to the point where three ministers have threatened resignation - Antonio Di Pietro, infrastructure minister; Clemente Mastella, justice minister; and Fabio Mussi, minister for universities and research.
Outside the halls of government, professional groups including bankers, lawyers, notaries, pharmacists and taxi drivers have gone on strike and staged anti-government rallies in protest at Mr Prodi’s efforts to open their sectors to competition.
All these difficulties have caused some politicians to ask if Mr Prodi might do well to reshape his coalition by excluding far-left critics and embracing Catholic moderates currently aligned with the centre-right opposition, led by Silvio Berlusconi.
But Mr Prodi said on Wednesday that he had no intention of assembling a new government, telling legislators: “Even if many [on my side] are applying themselves in different directions, I see no alternative to this coalition and this government.”
Thursday’s amnesty vote illustrated the limits to his argument, however. The measure, which will free about 12,000 prisoners from Italy’s severely overcrowded jails, was passed by 460 votes to 94 with 18 abstentions in parliament’s lower house.
But Mr Di Pietro and his Italy of Values party voted against the measure and attacked other legislators in Mr Prodi’s coalition for supporting it.
“They have voted an amnesty for the corrupt and the corruptors,” said Mr Di Pietro, a former prosecutor who led a crusade against the vast corruption uncovered in political parties, business and public administration in the 1990s.
The amnesty secured the necessary two-thirds majority only because it had the support of Mr Berlusconi and his Forza Italia party, pleased that it covered financial crimes such as fraud and peculation.
“When the government’s arguments convince us because they are in the country’s general interest, we have no difficulty in adding our vote,” Mr Berlusconi said.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006