Paolo Palazzo writes about a judicial corruption scandal in Italy, reflecting on the broader implications of immoral behavior, the failure of systemic controls, and the necessity of individual ethical conduct to ensure justice and protect the vulnerable.

In May 2019, the former president of the Court of Sanremo and Imperia (Italy) went to prison following multiple convictions for more than eight years, along with a lawyer and a court clerk involved in the same offences. He was convicted by the Court and the Court of Appeal in Turin for corruption in judicial acts, extortion of credit, embezzlement, and other very serious offences committed by a public official.

The investigations targeted the President of the Court and other people working at the courthouse, initially in Sanremo and later in Imperia. The investigations revealed that the magistrate in question unsuccessfully attempted to influence another judge from a different court to secure the release of a drug trafficker and had altered a sentence he had drafted in favour of another person.

In addition to other individual corruption episodes, a significant part of this investigation focused on the area of ‘voluntary jurisdiction’, more specifically on support administrations and guardianships. This activity is carried out by judges who appoint individuals, usually lawyers, to protect those who are unable to care for themselves due to mental or physical disabilities.

In this sensitive judicial area aimed at protecting those unable to manage their interests, the investigations revealed a disturbing, longstanding pattern.

Despite having a magistrate, serving as a tutelary judge, who was obliged to oversee the work of a lawyer appointed by the court as guardian or administrator of an incapacitated person, it emerged that both the overseer and the appointed lawyer had embezzled part of the rich personal assets of a person under guardianship. A clerk in charge of the ‘voluntary jurisdiction’ of that court and a lawyer from the same court also participated in these criminal activities.

The criminal activity involved withdrawing money from bank accounts under the guise of payments for fictitious services intended to benefit the protected individuals. Not only that, but during the police operations, paintings and silverware belonging to those individuals had been found in the private homes of the guardian and the chancellor. A painting of a literary nobleman, belonging to a person under guardianship, was even found hanging in the living room of the chancellor who was later sentenced.

The same investigative activity had also focused on the area of ‘dormant inheritances’ — that is, financial assets for which there are no natural or appointed heirs of the deceased.

However, no formal charges were filed during the proceedings.

The Italian legislation regulating the sale of assets from dormant inheritances is particularly strict. The procedure, which ultimately allows the sale of these assets, is very well-guarded and requires the proposal of the person entrusted with the administration of the assets, the consent of the Public Prosecutor, and finally the authorization decided by a panel of three judges.

In this case, it was discovered that a highly valuable property was sold for about one-third of its value to a clerk from the same judicial office in Imperia handling dormant inheritances. Another element of suspicion for the investigators was the fact that the complex authorization process had been completed in only five days: an unusual speed for Italian judicial offices, which normally take much longer to adopt their decisions in general and also in the specific area of voluntary jurisdiction.

This unfortunate affair, widely covered by national newspapers, inevitably diminished public confidence in the judicial office and likely tarnished the reputation of the justice system at large.

However, it naturally raises the question: did no one suspect or doubt the procedures in that judicial office, and if so, why didn't they report it as a moral duty?

During the trial, the magistrates supporting the prosecution described the court as a ‘rotten system’ during a public hearing, characterizing it as a place of ‘such compromise that everyone turned the other way: lawyers, judges, court clerks’. These statements provoked a protest and a request for explanation from the President of the local bar association.

The considerations of the prosecutor at the hearing prompt a further question: can a system of positive norms function even in the absence of ethics on the part of its primary and secondary actors? The answer to this question seems to be negative. The judicial case presented above shows how, even in the presence of a system of legal rules designed to maximize guarantees for those in a weakened condition and unable to defend themselves, there was no protection for those who were its natural recipients.

There is no evidence that the ‘diffuse control’ exercised by persons from that same judicial office, who intervened by denouncing or even just expressing their dissent concerning the anomalous or even casual conduct of other colleagues, would have prevented or even stopped the illegalities, but this is very likely.

The same dynamics can be found in relationships in the office, with our neighbors and in everyday social life as much as in court cases and in the great events of history where ‘civic duty’, deciphered as a moral constraint imposed by conscience, gives way to personal convenience and ‘knowing how to be worldly’.

A pressing reflection concerns the degree of responsibility borne by individuals who, to avoid trouble or disapproval, remain silent, thereby facilitating the illegal actions of others.

It is necessary to pause and ask ourselves how far and, in essence, how much less ethically responsible is the person who adopts this attitude compared with the one who directly carries out criminal or immoral actions.

What possible remedy could ensure that these serious facts, that seriously harmed the individual rights of weak persons unable to defend themselves do not happen again? It seems that the answer to this question cannot be concluded by a revision of the system of standards or by even deeper controls that would be carried out and perceived as a further bureaucratic step with essentially no corrective capacity. Only individual ethical behavior can act as a moral check on those called upon to act or those who find themselves as unwilling witnesses to such occurrences. Schools can play a fundamental role in instilling these moral values.

Paolo Palazzo, Turin, October 4th