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Legal changes in Italy could be the hardest hit for Draghi

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In 1973, a group of landowners near Venice took the local government to court over walls built on their property. Nearly 50 years later, the case is far from over and many of those interviewed died.

“The case is far from unique,” admits Flavio Tagliapietra, a lawyer working on the case, who believes it is the longest case in Italian history. Tagliapietra himself was only four years old when he started.

The Venetian case is a vicious example of the Italian crisis that the United States government of Mario Draghi has vowed to end.

Instead, speeding up justice is an important part of the government’s multi-year reform program, which is funded by more than 200 bn donations and loans from the EU.

Italian law is one of the least restrictive in the EU, and for many years it has been criticized for restricting money and growing the economy in less than two decades.

Italian courts left their European counterparts in the amount of time it took to settle trade and government disputes. According to the European Commission, ordinary Italian criminal cases take more than 500 days to complete, compared to about 200 days in Germany, 300 in Spain or 450 in Greece.

In addition, in Italy cases are often lengthy. This is what happened in Venetian. When the Italian Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the landowners in 2017, it seemed that the matter was settled. But then the Italian Supreme Court reversed the decision; The case is ongoing.

“In Italy we have a word, taken from the Romans, namely: late justice and denial of justice,” Marta Cartabia, Italy’s new justice minister told the Financial Times in an interview.

Cartabia, the former President of Italy’s Supreme Court, was appointed by Draghi in February as part of an Italian initiative in Brussels to finance its debts and loans. Cartabia’s mission is to deliver Draghi’s promise to reduce the time it takes to prosecute.

“We are working on a number of reforms in Italy related to the administration of justice,” he said. “But there is a parallel: our goal is to reduce the time, as well as the length of litigation in criminal and state cases”.

Disclosure is a legal term that refers to what has happened at the conclusion of a case. Cartabia’s main goal is to reduce by a quarter in the next five years the time for cases to be heard, and to reduce government time by 40%.

“Italy has a tragic history in this regard,” said Mitja Gialuz, a professor of law at the University of Luiss, in Italy.

Gialuz also believes that the slow-moving system encourages corruption, while white supremacists can file appeals for years before facing a subsequent ruling. Restricted laws, which could lead to an appeal before it expires, are confusing.

“Prompt prosecution will ensure that there is a fight against corruption and crime, which is seriously undermining the Italian economy,” he said.

However, Gialuz believes that Cartabia and the Draghi state, which enjoys middle ground parties, can solve the problem that has been so closely linked in the past.

Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has faced a number of charges, some of which are still ongoing, and have repeatedly stated that this was political. The judicial process selected by the parties is the result.

“In the last 25 years it has been very difficult to negotiate a change of justice in Italy as a result of psychological warfare,” Gialuz said. “Now with the government led by Draghi we have a good chance.”

Cartabia said a simple but difficult way to speed up Italian courts was to encourage the consultation of new judges, which the Draghi government has already begun.

“We have very few judges compared to other countries in Europe,” he said. “If you have fewer judges you can’t deal with the cases, that’s very clear.”

Another option is to inform Italians who are involved in court cases across the country, who will be assigned to assist judges. Surprisingly, most Italian judges work independently, which means that they have to read all the final documents without charge.

“This did not happen under Italian law, except in a court of law,” he said. “It’s an old idea for a judge to work on his own, reading each paper on his own.”

He also said that these preachers have helped to reduce the number of individual cases of judges, and also to provide information to judges and magistrates who will see justice from an early age.

“I was one of the preachers in the Constitutional Court at the age of 28, it was a very good time for me. It was a transition from law to law.

Legislative changes may be limited compared to what Draghi governments use to build infrastructure, but its success may be significant in Italy’s future.

“If they can get rid of this it will be one of the most important part of Draghi’s transformation,” said Nicola Nobile, an economist at Oxford Economics. “It’s hard to know how much, but it would be a very important part of the Italian economy.”

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