Antimafia Commission
The Antimafia Commission (
.The Antimafia Commission's goal is to study the phenomenon of organized crime in all its forms and to measure the adequacy of existing anti-crime measures, legislative and administrative, according to their results. The commission also has judicial powers in that it may instruct the judicial police to carry out investigations; it can ask for copies of court proceedings, and is entitled to request any form of collaboration that it deems necessary. Those who provide testimony to the Antimafia Commission are obliged by law to tell the truth. The commission can also submit reports to the Italian Parliament as often as desired but does so at least on an annual basis.[1]
Preceding events
The first proposal to constitute a commission of inquiry into the Mafia was the result of post-war struggles for land reform and the violent reaction against peasant organizations and its leaders, culminating in the killing of 11 people and the wounding of over thirty at a Labour Day parade in Portella della Ginestra. The attack was attributed to the bandit and separatist leader Salvatore Giuliano. Nevertheless, the Mafia was suspected of involvement in the Portella della Ginestra massacre and many other previous and subsequent attacks.[2]
On 14 September 1948, a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the public security situation on Sicily (Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sulla situazione dell'ordine pubblico) was proposed by deputy Giuseppe Berti of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in a debate on the violence in Sicily. The proposal was turned down by the interior minister Mario Scelba, amidst indignant voices about prejudice against Sicily and Sicilians.[3][4]
In 1958, senator Ferruccio Parri again proposed to form a commission; the proposal was not taken up by the parliamentary majority. In 1961, the Christian Democracy party (DC) in the Senate and Sicilian politicians like Bernardo Mattarella and Giovanni Gioia (both later accused of links with the Mafia) dismissed the proposal as "useless". In March 1962, amidst gang wars in Palermo, the Sicilian Assembly asked for an official inquiry. On 11 April 1962, the Senate in Rome approved the bill; it took eight months before the Chamber of Deputies put the law to a vote. It was finally approved it on 20 December 1962.
First commission (1963–1982)
The first parliamentary Ccmmission of Inquiry on the Mafia phenomenon in Sicily (Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sul fenomeno della mafia in Sicilia) was formed in February 1963, in the midst of the
The second president in the new legislature was the DC member Donato Pafundi, and was formed on 5 June 1963. On 30 June 1963, a car bomb exploded in Ciaculli, an outlying suburb of Palermo, killing seven police and military officers sent to defuse it after an anonymous phone call. The bomb was intended for Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco, head of the Sicilian Mafia Commission and the boss of the Ciaculli Mafia family. The Ciaculli massacre changed the Mafia war into a war against the Mafia. It prompted the first concerted anti-mafia efforts by the state in post-war Italy. On 6 July 1963, the Antimafia Commission met for the first time. It would take thirteen years and two more legislatures before a final report was submitted in 1976.
The PCI claimed the DC party put members on the commission to stop the inquiry moving too far in the political field, such as the commission's vice-president Antonio Gullotti and Giovanni Matta, a former member of Palermo's city council. Matta's arrival in 1972 created a scandal, as he had been mentioned in a report and was summoned to testify in the previous legislature about the role of the Mafia in real estate speculation. The PCI called for his resignation, and in the end the whole commission under the presidency of Luigi Carraro had to resign and be recomposed without Matta again.[4][5]
New legislation
In September 1963, the Antimafia Commission presented a draft law, passed by the Italian Parliament in May 1965 as Law 575 entitled Dispositions against the Mafia, the first time the word Mafia had been used in legislation. The law extended 1956 legislation concerning individuals considered to be "socially dangerous" to those "suspected of belonging to associations of the Mafia type". The measures included special surveillance; the possibility of ordering a suspect to reside in a designed place outside his home area and the suspension of publicly issued licenses, grants or authorizations. The law gave powers to a public prosecutor or questor (chief of police) to identify and trace the assets of anyone suspected of involvement in a Mafia-type association.[6]
The efficacy of the new law was severely limited. Firstly, because there was no legal definition of a Mafia association. Secondly, because the obligation for mafiosi to reside in areas outside Sicily, in fact opened up new opportunities to develop illicit activities in the cities of northern and central Italy. Amending this law during the next four decades was the main aim in the legislative fight against mafia; it was amended by La Torre-Rognoni law (1982) and by some cornerstone judgement of Italy's Supreme Court of Cassation.[7]
Interim reports
In 1966, Pafundi declared: "These rooms here are like an ammunition store. In order to give us the chance to the very root of the truth we don't want them to explode too soon. We have here a load of dynamite." The store never exploded, and Pafundi summed up the efforts of the Antimafia Commission in three discreet pages in March 1968. All the documents were locked away. Pafundi’s successor who took over the commission in 1968 was a different man, Francesco Cattanei, a member of the DC from the Northern Italy who was determined to investigate thoroughly.[4]
Cattanei came under attack of his fellow DC members. The party’s official newspaper Il Popolo wrote that the Antimafia Commission had become an instrument of the PCI. Despite the smears to his reputation, Cattanei was supported by the majority of the commission and support in public opinion caused him to resist the pressure to resign. In July 1971, the commission published an intermediary report with biographies of prominent mafiosi, such as Tommaso Buscetta, and summarized the characteristics of the Mafia.
The Antimafia Commission investigated the activities and failed prosecution of Luciano Leggio, the administration of Palermo and the wholesale markets in the city, as well as the links between the Mafia and banditry in the post-war period. In its report of March 1972, the Antimafia Commission said in its introduction: "Generally speaking magistrates, trade unionists, prefects, journalists, and the police authorities expressed an affirmative judgement on the existence of more or less intimate links between Mafia and the public authorities ... some trade unionists reached the point of saying that 'the mafioso is a man of politics'." The commission's main conclusion was that the Mafia was strong because it had penetrated the structure of the state.[3][4]
The Antimafia Commission was dissolved when new elections made an end to the legislature. In the next legislature, Cattanei was replaced with Luigi Carraro, a fellow DC member who was more sensitive to the fears of the DC that had been under attack of the commission.[3]
Disappointing results
In 1972,
In the final report of the first Antimafia Commission, the former Palermo mayor
The final report was issued at a time when the question of the Mafia was pushed to the background by the political turmoil in the 1970s, known as the Years of Lead (anni di piombo), a period characterized by widespread social conflicts and terrorism acts attributed to far-left and far-right political movements and the secret services.
Second commission (1982–1987)
The second Antimafia Commission was installed on 13 September 1982, in the midst of the
The Antimafia Commission had no power to investigate. It analyzed anti-mafia legislation, in particular the new Antimafia Law (known as the
Third commission (1987–1992)
The third Antimafia Commission was installed in 1987 under the presidency of PCI senator
The third Antimafia Commission decided to make public the 2,750 files on links between the Mafia and politicians that had been kept secret by the first commission. In February 1992, ahead to the general elections of 5 April 1992, the commission urged political parties to apply a code of self-regulation when presenting candidates, a measure intended to mirror the legislative provisions for public-office holders in 1990; no one should stand for election who had been committed for trial, was a fugitive from the law, was serving a criminal sentence, was subject to preventive measures or was convicted, even though not definitively, for crimes of corruption, Mafia association, and a range of others.[8] A week before the election, the commission reported that on the basis of information received from two-thirds of the prefectures in the country, thirty-three candidates standing in the forthcoming elections were "non-presentable" according to the code of self-regulation.
Fourth commission (1992–1994)
The fourth Antimafia Commission was installed on 8 June 1992, after the Capaci bombing resulted in the murder of judge Giovanni Falcone on 23 May, and was modified after via D'Amelio Bombing caused the death of his colleague Paolo Borsellino on 19 July. On 23 September 1992, Luciano Violante from the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS) was appointed president of the commission. Under Violante's leadership, the commission worked for 17 months until the parliamentary dissolution in February 1994. It passed thirteen reports, the most important of which was on the relations between the Mafia and politics, the terzo livello (third level) of the Mafia, on 6 April 1993.[9]
The Antimafia Commission had to work in one of Italy’s most critical moment when the country's democracy was challenged by criminal subversion by the Mafia and the
Important
In February 1993,
The Senate authorized to proceed with the criminal investigation of Andreotti on 10 June 1993; he was formally committed for trial in Palermo on 2 March 1995).Other commissions (1994–present)
After Violante, presidents of the Antimafia Commission were:
- Tiziana Parenti (FI, 1994–1996)
- Ottaviano Del Turco (SDI, 1996–1999)
- Giuseppe Lumia (SD, 1999–2001)
- Roberto Centaro (FI, 2001–2006)
- Francesco Forgione (PRC, 2006–2008)
- Giuseppe Pisanu (PdL, 2008–2013)
- Rosy Bindi (PD, 2013–2018)
- Nicola Morra (M5S, 2018–2022)
- Chiara Colosimo (FdI, since 2023)
See also
References
- ^ Jamieson, The Antimafia, p. 52
- ^ a b c (in Italian) La Commissione parlamentare antimafia
- ^ a b c d e (in Italian) L'istituzione della prima Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sulla mafia in: L'art. 41-bis l. 354/75 come strumento di lotta contro la mafia, by Elisa Fontanelli, bachelor's degree dissertation, Florence university, 2005
- ^ a b c d e Servadio, Mafioso, p. 197-220
- ^ I pregiudicati nell'Antimafia Archived 2007-08-22 at the Wayback Machine, by Umberto Santino, Centro Siciliano di Documentazione "Giuseppe Impastato"
- ^ a b c Jamieson, The Antimafia, p. 16-23
- ^ "The Supreme Court now recognizes a bilateral relationship between the parties of the illicit exchange, but states that it is not always between material benefits, but also between the promised benefits": Buonomo, Giampiero (2000). "Voto di scambio e concorso esterno: la suprema Corte "rilancia" i reati". Diritto&Giustizia Edizione Online. Archived from the original on 1 August 2012. Retrieved 14 March 2016.
- ^ a b Jamieson, The Antimafia, p. 37-38
- ^ a b Jamieson, The Antimafia, p. 52-60
- ^ (in Italian) Audizione del collaboratore della giustizia Tommaso Buscetta
- ^ (in Italian) Audizione del collaboratore di giustizia Gaspare Mutolo, Antimafia Commission, February 9, 1993
Bibliography
- Jamieson, Alison (1999). The Antimafia: Italy's fight against organized crime, London: Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 0-333-80158-X.
- Servadio, Gaia (1976), Mafioso. A history of the Mafia from its origins to the present day, London: Secker & Warburg ISBN 0-436-44700-2
- La Commissione parlamentare antimafia
External links
- (in Italian) Commissione parlamentare di inchiesta sul fenomeno della criminalità organizzata mafiosa o similare Archived 2007-08-24 at the Wayback Machine Official site of the Antimafia Commission
- (in Italian) Verbali della Commissione Parlamentare Antimafia Archived 2007-06-19 at the Wayback Machine XI legislatura, presidenza: Luciano Violante
- (in Italian) Caso Impastato final report of the Italian parliamentary Antimafia Commission, 6 December 2000
- (in Italian) Relazione conclusiva dalla Commissione parlamentare d’inchiesta sul fenomeno della criminalità organizzata mafiosa o similare (Relatore: senatore Centaro), Part 1, 18 January 2006
- (in Italian) Relazione conclusiva dalla Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sul fenomeno della criminalità organizzata mafiosa o similare (Relatore: senatore Centaro), Part 2, 18 January 2006
- (in Italian) Relazione conclusiva di minoranza (Relatore: Giuseppe Lumia), 18 January 2006