Two hundred people say no to the “shameful law”

Two hundred people met outside the Varese law court in Piazza Cacciatori delle Alpi to protest civilly against the so-called “shameful law”, as Roberto Saviano defined it in the Repubblica. This bill shortens the lawsuits’ time reducing the proceedings to two years in each of the three levels of judgement. According to the demonstration organisers, it jeopardises longer trials that are quite often regarding most serious crimes, while the most important problem of the Italian justice system – the lack of resources to finish trials on time – is still unresolved.

Livio Frigoli, ex-mayor of Castellanza and one of the promoters of the sit-in commented: “justice is a serious matter, we are asking for resources to finish trials instead of cancelling them”. He then added: “The Italians want Berlusconi to take himself to trial and I think a lot of his voters want him to do it too. The participation of 200 people to this event shows that a lot of people want to put things straight and to stop the justice system being abused”. Andrea Civati, young democrat and author of the “tam-tam” on facebook commented: “within two days we have mobilised 200 people. In other squares they are doing the same thing at the same time. The information spread out via e-mail, Internet sites and social networks and we have been able to attract people from the left and the right wings. We hope that politicians will be able to read the message that people are sending”.

Alessandro Alfieri (PD), the ex-senator Maria Pellegatta (Communisiti Italiani), Cosimo Colonna (lawyer a member of the association) were also present among the people demonstrating. The latter talked about “a timely bill which will cancel thousand of trials for the benefit of one person alone, despite the courts being overloaded with minor crime trials that are not going to be affected by this bill.”