Constitutional Court, the left shouts about the attempted coup but has always placed the judges –

Domenico Alcamo

October 10, 2024

The left resorts to the “Aventine” tactic to avoid electing the missing judge of the Constitutional Court. An obstructionism motivated by the fact that the name indicated by the centre-right, Saverio Marini, would be too close to the same majority. But, beyond the method and political procedures, there is a basic theme that reveals the repetitive reflex of the left in this “round” for the election of the constitutional judge, that is, a certain reluctance to recognize names coming from the opposing camp can access the guarantee bodies. Which evidently, perhaps due to the well-known self-investiture of moral superiority, in the progressive world they consider to be almost exclusively their own prerogative. In fact, there are many names coming from their own area who have been part of the Consulta, or at least who, despite being independent, have at various moments of their journey brought grist to the mill of those theses there, of those battles there. For example, Gustavo Zagrebelsky belongs to the latter category, who entered the Constitutional Court in 1995 (of which he would become president, for a few months, nine years later) upon appointment by the then President of the Republic Oscar Luigi Scalfaro. To be illustrious, Zagrebelsky is, and this is undeniable. Just as it is undeniable, however, a certain public activism of his, which even led him to welcome Berlusconi’s entry into the field, with an article in L’Unità in April 1994, as if portraying a “regime risk”, identifying in Berlusconism a «subculture».

Scrolling here and there along the last thirty years of consultation we come across Valerio Onida, who was a member of the parliamentary elections and sat on the Court between 1996 and 2004. We will then find him again in 2010, candidate in the centre-left primaries for the candidacy for Mayor of Milan. And what about Giovanni Maria Flick? He was Minister of Justice in the first Prodi government, then entered the Council upon presidential appointment in 2000. And again Gaetano Silvestri, who was in the Constitutional Court between 2005 and 2014, upon parliamentary election. His is a profile of very clear political-cultural sensitivity, given that he was a member of the Italian Communist Party and even elected to the Messina City Council for a mandate in the 1970s. Giuliano Amato cannot be missing from this quick overview, serving in the Consulta between 2013 and 2022 upon appointment by the President of the Republic. His is an entirely left-wing political path. Socialist in the first Republic, after the end of the carnation he chose the left side, and was a deputy and senator several times for the Ulivo and the Democratic Party. His second mandate as Prime Minister (the previous one was in the twilight of the First Republic) took place between 2000 and 2001, at the end of the disastrous five-year period of the centre-left. And he was also interior minister with the second Prodi government (2006-2008).

Furthermore, there is an illustrative political path to the left for the current President of the Court, Augusto Barbera. He was a member of parliament several times between the 70s and the 90s, first with the PCI and then with the PDS. And it is also worth remembering the case of Fernanda Contri. At the consultation between 1996 and 2005, she had previously been minister for social affairs in the Ciampi government. More than ten years later, in 2007, he joined the Democratic Party in which he also demonstrated a certain activism. First candidate in the primaries in the Tiglio constituency (Liguria) then, later, president of the party’s guarantee commission to supervise the regularity of the consultations to choose the candidate for president of the Region.