One of Oronzo Reale's worries, says Gianna Radiconcini, a republican militant, who had been his friend and collaborator and who is busy organizing a conference dedicated to his political history, was that in the end he would be remembered for that law on public order which bears his name. Let's be clear, Reale certainly did not disregard that law, which he had prepared as Keeper of the Seals in 1975, to deal with a very difficult situation of public order, characterized by violent marches and the appearance of the first phenomena of terrorism. But he believed that, in his long career as a politician, he had done better and more.
It is in fact due to the politician from Lecce family law reform, also dated 1975, with which legal equality between spouses was finally established, and equal rights were recognized for natural children. Reale then, already in 1968, as Minister of Justice had presented a bill for repeal the extenuating circumstances for the so-called honor killing. Which were then abolished only in 1981. Royal law, which in recent days has been evoked by the Minister of the Interior Maroni and by the leader of the IDV Di Pietro, above all it provided for the introduction of police detention which could be extended for 48 hours, without having to be accountable to the judiciary. Which in turn could subsequently extend the detention for another 48 hours.
The law was born from a heavy climate for public order: violent marches followed one another without any warning, the order service was often violent with the famous Katangese, armed with bars, who appeared in those of the student movement, the expropriated proletarians . Faced with these facts, right-thinking public opinion asked for adequate measures to prevent and repress the violence. Thus it was that the police (to which no one had stolen means with linear cuts at the time) were granted extraordinary powers. Reale, who certainly did not lack a sense of state authority, played his part. The law was then approved with the PCI voting against, which however radically changed its mind subsequently, especially after the harsh protest suffered by the CGIL secretary Luciano Lama in 1977 at the University of Rome.
As Miguel Gotor recalled in "la Repubblica", on that occasion Bruno Seghetti was driving the autonomous, supported by Emilia Libera and Antonio Savasta, who we will find again later as protagonists in the history of the Red Brigades. Since then the PCI was the most committed, together with the DC, to support the validity of the law, on the occasion of the referendum proposed by the radicals to obtain its abolition. Those were the times when Kossiga and Pecchioli wrote each other with a k. The question is now: did the royal law serve to prevent the violence of the processions? It seems like no. Given that, in accordance with this law, violence and terrorism actually continued in progression: from the protest against Lama (1977), to the Moro crime (1978), to the widespread violence caused by terrorist infiltrations in the factories.
It is worth mentioning the trial against the 61 at Fiat in Turin. The next question is: can it be useful to re-propose the Royal law today? Also this time the doubts are many. Also because today the police and law enforcement agencies have far fewer means than they did in the 70s, when no one thought they could take them away from the protection of citizens' safety. And therefore, before special laws are passed, they need ordinary means to do their job.
