Well, things DO seem to have deteriorated again somewhat since I breezed out this morning for a nice lunch with my Mother, followed by the unexpected pleasure of watching England finally managing to win a cricket tournament - albeit in the most bastardised and over-razzmatazzy (have I just invented a new word?) form of the game.
Anyhow, since Italy's fascist past seems to have stirred up a whole lot of invective, I thought I'd put things into a bit of context as I see them - and I apologise in advance for the tedious history lesson, but I think it's very relevant for context):
Firstly, I have to say that I think Mary H was wrong and misplaced in gratuitously invoking Italy's past history. HOWEVER, it happens to actually have an amount of relevance, but not, I suspect, in a way in which Mary H intended.
Second, for background, many people might not be aware that Italy as we know it today has only really existed since the mid-19th century, making it a much "younger" country than the USA, for example. Many people imagine that Italy has existed as a more-or-less single entity since Roman times, but this is far from true. From shortly after the Roman era, right up to the 1850s, what we now call Italy was a separate collection of independent kingdoms and city-states, each with its own laws, governments, armies, taxes etc. The states often warred, and to this day many inhabitants of the former northern states (e.g. Milan, Savoy, Venice, Florence) harbour real residual resentment and animosity against occupants of the former Southern states (Naples, Sicily, Papal).
In the 1860s, Italy unified to become a monarchy - mainly to guarantee strength through size. The unification process was extremely difficult, but it managed to preserve, allowing Italy to build an empire and achieve economic growth throughout the latter part of the 19th century. However, Italy suffered hugely from the first world war (despite being part of the winning side), leading to political instability that set the scene for Mussolini to take power and establish a fascist dictatorship. This lasted until the end of WW2 (by which time Mussolini had been summarily executed), and the monarchy was superseded by the Italian republic in 1946.
Now, the reason that this is important is that the current Italian criminal legal system is based on the criminal code introduced in 1930. This code was drafted under Mussolini, at a time when he'd transformed the country into a dictatorship and removed many of the separations between the executive and judiciary branches. The criminal code as written in 1930 contained a great deal of legislation and procedure that would be regarded today as "outmoded" at best, and "authoritarian and indefensible" at worst. Most, if not all, of these areas of the code have been modified over the years.
Why is this important? Well, it's important because of the word "modified". Legal systems tend to be altered or modified in a slow, and somewhat reactionary, way. The main reason for this is that those who make and those who apply laws are usually reluctant to change those laws or procedures, since it implies that the previous laws/procedures were incorrect or unjust. In other words, any change is often viewed as an implicit criticism of the status quo, rather than a necessary improvement.
For example, the 1930 Italian criminal code, written under a fascist state, decreed that defence counsels were denied access to ALL judicial acts of investigation (i.e. pre-trial). This situation prevailed until 1955, when a slow system of reform started. By the mid-1960s, defence counsels were allowed access to interrogations of suspects, judicial reviews in courts, and searches of properties or suspects. In the same way, the 1930 code allowed for almost indefinite pre-trial detention. This has been modified frequently, but even today the maximum allowed period of pre-trial detention for serious crimes (including murder) is six years.
The point about all this is as follows: Even though the Italian legal code has been frequently modified from the 1930 code on which it's based, the "starting point" for all modifications was a code written to satisfy a fascist dictator. It appears evident that the level of reform of the code has reflected an unwillingness to make wholesale, sweeping changes to the original code - but rather to engage in smaller incremental changes. This means that the legal code that has resulted as of the present day still contains many of the vestiges and stains of the original 1930s code. To take but one example, the 6-year detention without trial is legally abhorrent in pretty much every other democratic judicial system. Interestingly, the most vehement (and justified) criticism of US government so-called "prisoner of war" procedures at Guantanamo was over the lengthy pre-trial detention of the suspects, most of whom had been interred there for far less than six years at the time of the controversy over their detention.
By the way, I'm not implying here any particular or unique criticism of Italian legislators. History shows that lawmakers all over the world have been similarly reluctant to change the status quo. Here in the UK, it took way too many years for homosexuality to be legalised, and even then the age of gay consent was left higher than the age of straight consent for many years more. And UK lawmakers will soon have to change a manifestly unfair part of UK legal code, whereby a small number of particularly notorious criminals (usually serial or child killers) are given a sentence tariff that only gives the Home Secretary of the day (a government minister) the decision on if and when they should be released. This is a clear breach of the important principle of separation of the executive and judicial branches, and will lead to an embarrassing process of re-sentencing and new legislation when it's successfully challenged in Europe pretty soon (my opinion only(!), but most observers think that's how it will go).
So, in summary (and if anyone's still reading this!!), the criminal code that exists in Italy today is the product of modifications of a code written in 1930s fascist Italy. That fact helps to explain the seeming anomalies in the Italian legal system, and clarifies any potential misconceptions that Italian law has been refined and improved since the majesty of Roman times. I'm absolutely NOT saying that the Italian legal system is intrinsically wrong or unjust. However I think that no system of law (Italian, US, Canadian, UK, Aboriginal, Zimbabwean) is inviolate or un-improvable, and that each of them - to a greater or lesser extent - has its flaws.
Sorry again for this ridiculously long post - I thought you might all appreciate a bedtime story though (unless you're in North American time zones, in which case consider it as one of those many supplements to the enormous Sunday newspaper...)
