Nothing ‘Third World’ about Italian justice

[grassfed]

The abuse of the Perugia judge and court following Amanda Knox’s conviction is staggeringly ill-informed
BY ROBERT FOX

Italy stands accused of running a judicial system of Third World standards, according to American critics of Amanda Knox's conviction by a Perugia court for murdering her British housemate Meredith Kercher.

We shouldn't be surprised by this. There is a track record of serious friction between the Italians and the US on judicial matters over the past 30 or 40 years.

Last month a court in Milan convicted in absentia 22 CIA employees and a US Air Force colonel for the 'extraordinary rendition' of the Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr , seized in broad daylight on a Milan street. The US steadfastly refused to extradite the Americans to stand trial, and refused to recognise the Milan court.

In 1998 a US Prowler aircraft involved in illegal low flying snagged the wire of a ski lift gondola at Cavalese in the Dolomites, killing all 20 aboard. Under Nato rules the crew stood trial in the US, and were acquitted of manslaughter, though later they were dismissed from the military for falsifying records, including the destruction of the video recording of the incident.

Italians naturally resent the abuse - usually staggeringly ill-informed - that is thrown at their judges and courts in cases like that of the kidnapped cleric, and the Kercher murder trial. Speaking with admirable restraint, Franco Frattini, Italy's foreign minister, said of Knox's conviction: "The case seems right and normal". The full appeal procedure – which might take years – will be followed.

Giuliano Mignini, who led the prosecution team in Perugia and has come in for a torrent of personal abuse, revealed: "At the various levels in this case, from the preliminary investigating judge to the trial itself, the evidence was scrutinised by no less than 19 judges."

This is not abnormal. Italian jurisprudence operates a different mechanism from England and America to achieve the same end – conviction or acquittal. It is at the same time both more and less formal than the Anglo-Saxon model.

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[COLGATE4]

1. Once again, "American exceptionalism" rears its ugly head

and so any judicial proceeding against a fair-haired American girl not brought in this country (and indeed many that ARE brought here) is out of hand deemed not to be worth of credence. After all, all the lousy Italians have to fall back on are centuries of Roman Law and later the Napoleonic Code (basis for law in many European nations).

[seeinfweggos]

2. great article, thanks for posting