Saturday, March 10, 2018

Should Italy abolish its military courts?

That is the question, according to this report in Il Dubbio. Dr. Gioacchino Tornatore of the Military Court of Appeal has argued against abolition on the occasion of the beginning of the judicial year, despite the Italian system's low numbers. Excerpt (modified computer translation):
He took the opportunity to launch an appeal to the future government for a wider jurisdiction to be entrusted to the military judiciary. In many instances these are cases of crimes already known for some time in the world of soldiers, while in others they are new, as in the case of defamation on social media, or sexist insults against military women in an environment with a strong chauvinist presence. Many cases resulted in  convictions; in others the proceedings are still pending. The statistical data on the work of the military courts are so insignificant that if they were evaluated according to the standards of the Ministry of Justice, the auditors would jump because according to the Ministry it is estimated that each court must cover a catchment area of ​​382,191 citizens; military justice, on the other hand, can count on three courts, in Verona, Rome, Naples, and covers a total of 310,000 people. In fact, many argue that it is better to integrate the military magistrates into the ordinary judiciary, perhaps creating specialized sections. Dr. Tornatore does not agree on this point and appeals to the future government. "In the last review by the legislature -- he said -- attention to the military magistracy focused nearly unanimously on the abolition of this special judicial system, with transfer of its current jurisdiction to the ordinary judiciary, with a view to unification of the courts and the possible creation of specialized sections that can continue to deal with the crimes currently reserved for the jurisdiction of the Military Courts. Tornatore is against doing so and sees as the solution "to give and return to the military judges jurisdictional powers that the ordinary magistracy is dealing with today". The debate on abolition is still ongoing.
Additional caseload data can be found here.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments are subject to moderation and must be submitted under your real name. Anonymous comments will not be posted (even though the form seems to permit them).