Government beaten in the House on civil liability for judges. THE'amendment to the community law, presented by the League and voted by secret ballot, it passed with 264 favorable ballots, 211 against and one abstention. The Chamber thus disavowed the Executive led by Mario Monti, who had expressed a contrary opinion on the text. Now the provision is awaited in the Senate for the second and decisive parliamentary passage.
It is precisely in the assembly of Palazzo Madama that the hopes of Paula Severino: “We trust that some improvements can be discussed in the second reading – comments the Minister of Justice after the vote in Montecitorio -, because spot interventions on this matter can make the overall picture less than harmonious”.
The amendment provides that "anyone who has suffered unjust damage as a result of a behaviour, an act or a provision" of a magistrate "in manifest violation of the law or with willful misconduct or gross negligence in the exercise of his/her duties or for denial of justice", can sue the State and the magistrate himself for damages and possibly obtain compensation.
To establish the guilt of a magistrate, the text establishes that it must be "evaluated whether the judge has taken into account all the elements that characterize the dispute submitted to his review with particular reference to the degree of clarity and precision of the violated rule, the intentional nature of the violation, the excusability or inexcusability of the error of law”.
According to the Pd group leader in Montecitorio, Dario Franceschini, the “serious” aspect is that the Pdl had committed itself to the government to vote for the suppression of the amendment, but with the secret ballot the opposite happened. On some topics, evidently, the PDL and the Lega are reunited”.
However, the PDL group leader returns the criticisms to the sender: "The attacks are unjustified - he replies Fabrizio Cicchitto -. It was a free vote, given by secret ballot, which involved all parliamentary groups outside of any pre-established scheme. On the other hand, the numbers speak for themselves: those who voted in favor of the amendment on the civil liability of judges are much more than the sum of deputies present in the Chamber belonging on the one hand to the PDL and to Popolo e Territorio and on the other to the Lega ”.
