Dear Director,
it seems that a magistrate commented on Marina Berlusconi’s letter by saying: «But what does he want? He got justice.” If it were true, the unfortunate exit reveals the poor human quality of certain magistrates who think like this. I would like to ask Director Feltri what he thinks of this “nice guy” (perhaps good) who talks about an acquittal that came after 30 years, with the accused now dead.
Best regards
Roberto Costanzo
Dear Roberto,
that a magistrate utters the phrase “there is no reason to complain, he has had justice”, in response to Marina Berlusconi’s letter, is the clearest and saddest proof of the moral degradation affecting part of the Italian judiciary. Because only those who have lost contact with reality, and perhaps even with conscience, can define “justice” as a sentence arrived after thirty years of trials, insinuations, media lynchings and personal devastation. Furthermore, a sentence arrived when the accused is already dead, and therefore incapable of even defending his memory before the judges, whether there is acquittal or not. If this is justice, then justice in Italy is no longer a value, but a caricature of itself. True justice must be just in timing and method, not just in the conclusion. Acquitting a man after decades of ordeal, when he is already in the ground, means making fun of him twice: the first when you accuse him, the second when you “exonerate” him too late to give him back the life that was taken from him. Silvio Berlusconi did not get justice. He was persecuted and massacred by a politicized judicial system, by militant prosecutors and by a complacent part of the press, who transformed justice into a weapon of political struggle. They took away his serenity, health, time and respect. They smeared him in every way possible. And now someone wants to dismiss the matter with a shrug of the shoulders: “He got justice.” No, dear gentleman in toga. Berlusconi did not get justice: he got a martyrdom. And we are witnesses of it. He spent thirty years defending himself from accusations that the Supreme Court denies today, but which in the meantime have destroyed his private existence, his public image and his serenity. This is not just a judicial error, but judicial torture, perpetrated for decades by those who confused law with revenge. The task of a magistrate is not to set himself up as a moral censor, nor to engage in politics, nor to distribute ethical judgments on the lives of others. His duty is to ensure compliance with the law, with balance, speed and decency.
To say that he “got justice” when the sentence arrives post-mortem is an insult to logic and humanity. It’s like saying to a terminally ill patient who has recovered after burial: «See? The medicines worked.” When Italian justice behaves like this, it does not re-establish the truth: it buries it together with its victims.
And the complicit silence of many colleagues, who instead of being indignant remain silent, makes this reality even more intolerable.
I don’t know the magistrate in question, but I know that with sentences like this he betrays the robe he wears. Because justice, true justice, is not an exercise of power: it is an act of humility. And there is very little humility left in our judicial system.