january 2005
ZNet Commentary
December 13, 2004
By Adele Oliveri
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2004-12/12oliveri.cfm
As if aspiring to the creation of the autonomous region of Padania weren't enough, it looks like the Northern League also has a clear idea as to how justice should be administered. Roberto Calderoli, Minister of Reforms and member of the League, proposed a couple of weeks ago to offer a reward of 25 thousand euros (30 thousand dollars approx.) to whoever would provide information leading to the apprehension of the killer of Giuseppe Maver, a petrol pump attendant shot dead in Lecco (a small city in Lombardy) Thursday November 25 in a robbery attempt.
Not just any reward, but a true price on the head, according to Calderoli: "I would have preferred something like 'Dead or Alive', but I was told the law does not allow it". (Such a pity, Minister, isn't it?)
Considering that the Italian news of the past few weeks reads like a war bulletin (in Naples alone, where a war between criminal clans is raging, killings have been running at an average of one a day), it is natural to ask how come this particular homicide has assumed, in the eyes of Minister Calderoli, such an importance as to justify an intervention almost without precedents in the Italian judicial system. He himself has provided the answer: "No-one will ever touch a citizen from Padania. He was a militant of ours". In plain English, who gives a damn of people from Campania, Sicily, Sardinia and other Italians.
(To avoid coming to the conclusion that all Leaguers share the same view as Calderoli's, it is right to emphasize that the family of the deceased has given a cold welcome to the Minister's proposal).
It's enough to make us regret the boastings of the "Senatur", Umberto Bossi, which were totally innocent in comparison. Lest I am accused of taking it out on the Northern League (which is easier than taking tripe with the Red Cross), let me remind you that Italy still has something that goes by the name of Constitution, where article 3 reads: "All citizens have equal social dignity and are equal in front of the law without distinction of sex, race, language, religion, political opinions, and personal or social conditions".
Calderoli is not just any officer of an obscure political party, he is a Minister of the Republic who, as such, has sworn on the Constitution. His proposal, besides being censurable for a whole bunch of reasons, patently violates one of the founding principles on which our democratic system is based, because it is borne out of the belief that a citizen of Lombardy deserves greater protection than others.
There would be enough to ask for and to obtain his resignation and of that of his fitting accomplice, the Minister of Justice (!) Castelli, but the sad truth is that our petty politicians seem to have become totally accustomed to seeing the Constitution treated as little more than a foot mat.
Back to the issue of the reward itself, Calderoli's proposal has sparked a real controversy even among some people on the left. Those in favour have argued that rewarding someone who collaborates with the law could provide an incentive to contribute sensible information, thereby facilitating the course of justice. On the face of it, it makes perfect sense; however, at least three counter-arguments come to mind: the first has to do with the efficacy of a reward, the second with the spirit of reciprocity that ought to inform social relations, and the third - much more important and tied to the second - with the dangerous drift towards a "privatization" of justice which such a measure could trigger off.
These are not conclusive arguments - however, taken together, they provided useful insights to counter those who, overcome by resentment or simply tired of feeling targeted my micro-criminality, end up blindly upholding unjust and counter-productive measures.
In the first place, it is not at all clear whether rewarding someone who denounces a criminal facilitates the gathering of information that will lead to his or her capture. The mirage of a sumptuous reward, in fact, could push people into trying their luck (perhaps finally getting rid of one's neighbor), providing all sorts of information and complicating identification of the right lead.
What's more, where the conspiracy of silence is born out of a presumed sense of honor, which considers "spying" a detestable act, the offer of a financial reward or other material benefits could render the potential informers even more reticent, for fear of running into the community's ostracism for having "sold out" to the State. Plainly said, can you imagine a Mafia man violating his code of honor for 25 thousand miserly euros? Or a father denouncing his son for money? Let's get serious!
Second, helping with the capture of a killer ought to come about from a feeling of reciprocity towards the community. Without invoking a sense of responsibility or of duty to the State, simple rules of behavior that are (or, at least, ought to be) at the base of common living should be enough. In this sense, a reward for information leading to the capture of a killer should not even be necessary. The will of rendering a service to our fellow citizens, in the hope of being able to count on the cooperation of others when the need arises, ought to be enough. What we are talking about is a basic spirit of human solidarity, to be encouraged through social acknowledgements of altogether another nature, and not being treated as a commodity through the promise of a material reward.
Calderoli's proposal is set right within this neoliberal tendency of treating every facet of human life as commodity: a true "privatization" of justice that would thus cease to respond to the values of equity and equality in front of the law, to simply become the right of the mightier (or the richer, which in many case is exactly the same).
>From the introduction of a reward for informers, to the use of handguns for legitimate self-defence (a proposal that has been aired many a times by the current government's representatives), to the patrolling by vigilantes and do-it-yourself justice, it is really a short step.
Beyond ethical considerations, it is right to ask whether such an approach to justice can really offer stronger guarantees of security to the citizens. The United States, where rewards are a widespread practice and private vigilance is a daily business (Bowling for Columbine docet), every year see the highest rate of violent deaths among industrialized countries. If statistics are anything to go by, it is decidedly more useful to look in another direction.
Perhaps, instead of nurturing vain reactionary desires and demagogic drives, aimed at heating up their electoral base in the light of the upcoming regional and political elections, the Ministers from the Northern League should take it up with the deep cuts so dear to the Lord of Arcore, Silvio Berlusconi, whose government froze the turnover of public employment and expenditure on intermediate consumptions, thereby taking up as a rule of government the deterioration of public services, including public order and the administration of justice.
Unless, of course, Calderoli and his mates are yearning for the myth of a Far West that existed only in Hollywood's propaganda, where the law was roughly administered by a sheriff without mark and without fear. Perhaps with a tin star and a Po Valley green scarf to the neck.
ZNet at http://www.zmag.org