Nordio: 'It is inappropriate for magistrates to complain about criticism from politicians'

"It is true that we politicians are very often critical of sentences, but it is also true that very often judges are critical of laws, so it is a bit inappropriate for them to complain when we criticize their provisions and then for them, who should only apply them, to criticize them in a violent way when they don't like them." Justice Minister Carlo Nordio said this at the Salone della Giustizia.

"I hope - added Nordio - that the relationship between politics and the judiciary not only does not worsen but that dialectics returns which is also lively but which must never exceed the limits of urbanity and good institutional education".

Nordio then underlined that "there is no intention to send inspectors to Milan" after the investigating judge's decision to release Youssef Siher, the thirty-year-old who had created the Movimento17 October drl account, "but faced with a request from the prosecutor's office for custody in prison which seemed well motivated, I repeat that I was surprised. I think the prosecutor's office will appeal and we will see how it ends".

"When demonstrations take place simultaneously in various countries, not only in Italy, but in France, Spain, Albania, the suspicion that there are forms other than spontaneous ones emerges. After '68 we had never witnessed so many demonstrations, even by minors unrelated to political ideologies", he observed.

"The pardon? For me, every form of free clemency is a form of surrender by the State if it is done to empty the prisons, because then one wonders: why do you put them in if you don't have room? Experience teaches us that when these pardons are given, after a year the situation returns identical to before. Another thing, and we are doing it, are the alternative paths for drug addicts who are sick people to be treated rather than criminals to be punished", continued the Keeper of the Seals.