The View from Bologna

How justice works under Prodi's Government

You have to feel sorry for Silvio. While he was in government the European media went to town detailing his every infringement of the democratic norms (of which there were plenty). Since Romano Prodi has been in power scarcely a whimper - for example, how many people outside of Italy know that the current Prime Minister is amongst those being investigated as part of the 'why not?' enquiry into corruption and fraud?

How many people know that his justice minister Clemente Mastella, also under investigation, has made official attempts to have the investigating magistrate replaced? On Friday, after months of speculation, it was revealed in the press that Mastella was officially under investigation as part of the enquiry into corruption, and missapropriation of European Union funding.

Mastella promptly issued a statement that threatened the government's downfall - saying that it would be best to end the government and go to the polls in the spring. The justice minister, thanks to the tiny majority that Prodi enjoys, has a particular weight with his words. And then, strangely, yesterday the case was taken off De Magistris by the regional Procura or judicial authority, citing incompatibility.

That various people have done all they could do to have this difficult investigating judge removed from the scene is apparent.

What is also apparent is the cross-party support for this blatant abuse of power. Not one party has come out officially in support of De Magistris (Antonio Di Pietro's Italiani dei Valori has published a blog post criticising the move, but there's been no suggestion that Di Pietro will do anything more than blog on the theme).

Now in a normal functioning democracy when the Prime Minister and Minister for Justice are both under investigation in a fraud and corruption case, and the investigation is tampered with officially, one would expect the opposition to have a field day. An event like this should at least cause resignations, if not the fall of the government. Instead, not a whimper.

While news broadcasts and newspapers give the impression that Italy's political parties are numerous and hopelessly divided over ideology - in reality from the left through to the right they're a unified politburo when it comes to anyone investigating political corruption or abuse of power.

It's about time we saw some articles appearing in the international press about the threat that Prodi and his government pose to Italian democracy.

Just what the net needs

The government of Romano Prodi, who we were led to believe would role back the counless instances of anti-democratic legislation introduced by Berlusconi, have set their sights on regulating the internet in Italy.

A new law, devised by former journalist and long-time Prodi collaborator Ricardo Franco Levi, supposedly has major newspapers and publishers in mind - requiring internet sites that publish information to register with a new authority. Sites would then have to follow legislation that currently covers only the printed press - i.e they would have to have a qualified editor, pay a stamp duty annually, and be subject to harsh penalties should they be found guilty of publishing misleading information.

The proposed law, in its current form, seems though to be easily applicable to anyone who has a website that is deemed by the authority to fall into their 'publisher' category. The result will therefore be that the authority (appointed by the government) will have a bureaucratic means of shutting down thousands of sites.

Should the law pass, bloggers will be put in the position where they will have to work out whether they're publishing or merely shooting the breeze. They'll have to decide whether their postings vaguely approach journalism (an experience most published journalists in Italy could do with), or remain firmly in the realm of personal musings. Citizen journalism, in other words, is out the window.

Of course, the likelihood of any widespread implementation is both unlikely and technically nigh-on impossible to implement. What it would do though is put the onus on site owners to register themselves with the authority, or face sanction should they be found in breach of the rules. It doesn't take a huge leap of the imagination to work out that hugely popular sites that publish material critical of the government or other power blocks within society will find themselves treading thin ice.

It's presumably just a conincidence that this proposed law comes through scarcely a month after blogger Beppe Grillo brought thousands of people onto the streets to protest against a corrupt political class.

And so, when the elections come in the spring (which they surely will, if not sooner), under the current situation voters will get to choose between a leader who seems to believe that news & politics should only be discussed in public by politically approved voices, and Silvio Berlusconi.

Walter Veltroni - between Gordon Brown, Clinton, and Gore

Today, according to most of the centre-left newspapers, we're witnessing a historic moment. The birth of a new party - the Partito Democratico, along with an american style primary to decide the leader of the party - which will be Rome's mayor Walter Veltroni.

On the official face of it, this is a new begining for Italian politics - having finally come good on Aldo Moro's historic compromise between centrist catholics and the left-wing (Moro was kidnapped and murdered by the Red Brigades shortly after declaring the compromise - perhaps equally to the relief of many on the right). The party is fundamentally founded on the union of the two largest centre-left parties The Margherita and the Democratici di Sinistra both of whom are currently serving in Prodi's coalition government. The creation of one large centre-left party will, in theory, allow the presentation at the election of one dominant national party - jettisoning many of the small parties that seem to interminably hold the legislature to ransom for purely local interests. Berlusconi is already working on a similar move on the right side of the political spectrum, which - if coupled with a sympathetic electoral reform - will pave the way to a new two-party system.

The innovation of this move is trumpeted by the newspapers (the majority of which recieve funding from the government - but that's another story), but what must strike any neutral observer is the deja vu of it all.

Veltroni, for example, was involved in the last great rupture and innovation on the left - the splitting of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in 1989 (a month after the fall of the Berlin Wall). The split involved the founding of a new party - which eventually adopted the name of Democratici di Sinistra - with many of the old faces.

The origins of this new 'democratic' party are similar. Sure, there's the need to reduce the stranglehold of small parties on the national government, but one of the more important factors behind the birth of the new party is the simple need to change image after the disastrous election results of 2006, and the fiercely unpopular first year of the Prodi government. A cosmetic change at best.

This is demonstrated brilliantly by the choice of name, and candidate for Party leader. Partito Democratico is a master-stroke, almost up there with Berlusconi's brilliant marketing coup of Forza Italia. Single-handedly, it puts the patent on the term 'democratic' - as if registering a trademark or domain name. Your other parties might have their pros, but we are the democratic ones. The fact that the election for party leader is from a list of five candidates, only one of which has even vaguely the same public profile as Veltroni indicates how this new party will define 'democracy'. In the information age this new party defiantly retains the top-down model of power. We'll choose the candidates, and the people can rubber-stamp the choice. Innovative my arse.

The one-sided nature of the primary is even more dissapointing given the fact that Veltroni is a hugely popular candidate who could see off most contenders. It's a coincidence that he's a Juventus fan - like them he's sure to win due to his merits most of the time, but unwilling to take the risk of losing that is a necessary pre-condition of a true democratic contest.

The man that has been described as Italy's Bill Clinton (I think it was meant as a compliment...), will be eagerly watching Gordon Brown's progress in the U.K. Like him he's waiting in the wings, hoping to step in at just the right moment to reverse the falling popularity of the government, no-doubt with a snap election hoping to catch Berlusconi's mob on the hop. Like Brown it will be a cosmetic change - the new party will have an overwhelming majority of old faces involved. True, Veltroni is not serving in this half-arsed excuse for a government, but most of his mates and future party colleagues are.

There are various things to recommend Veltroni, I'm sure, but one emblematic moment sticks in this monkey's mind. Veltroni, appearing on a popular television show Le Invasioni Barbariche, was interviewed by Daria Bignardi (perhaps the only decent interviewer in Italy) who pressed him on his oft-announced decision to retire from political life after a second term of office as Mayor of Rome. Veltroni, serenely, without doubt, announced that he would dedicate himself to other things - including working in Africa - after his term ended. He expressly said he would not be looking to succeed Prodi as the preferred leader of the centre-left.

Perhaps that's what the papers mean when they talk of a 'historic' moment - yet another occasion when a reluctant leader is convinced by the people to take power. A reluctant leader with the courage, integrity and respect for democracy of Gore, Clinton, and Gore - in that order.