CSM VP says institutional role requires sobriety and sense of limits

(ANSA) - ROME, FEB 20 - Fabio Pinelli, vice president of the Italian judiciary's self-governing body the CSM, on Friday said an institutional role requires sobriety and a sense of limits echoing a call from its titular head, Italian President Sergio Mattarella, for institutions to respect the CSM after Justice Minister Carlo Nordio called it a "para-mafioso" body. Speaking at a Rome conference on late distinguished jurist Vittorio Bachelet, Pinelli said: "Bachelet conceived politics, administration, and the functions of guarantee as forms of service to the pursuit of the common good, not as places of personal affirmation or the exercise of power as an end in itself. "An institutional role is an entrusted task, which requires sobriety, a sense of limits, and an awareness of its own temporary nature." The conference was titled "Bachelet: a man of the present, builder of the future. Vittorio's civil and ecclesial commitment: a seed of hope 100 years after his birth." Mattarella made his highly unusual call while chairing an ordinary session of the CSM for the first time in his 11 years as Italian president Wednesday. Nordio said he would comply with the call. Debate in Italy has been overheated lately on a controversial reform of the judiciary to stop judges and prosecutors switching roles, a move the opposition says will pave the way for executive control of prosecutors. The government says it will make the Italian justice system fairer, more efficient, and less prone to influence by factions. Premier Giorgia Meloni has been highlighting miscarriages of justice and judicial rulings that hamper government moves, particularly on immigration and migrant crime. But she, too, said she agreed with Mattarella's call Thursday night. The reform will be voted on by Italians in a referendum next month. (ANSA). Read article...

By ANSA