De Pasquale was right: there was no point in carrying on

Public Prosecutor Fabio De Pasquale has left the judiciary: “It no longer made sense to continue and I no longer identify with this judiciary,” he reportedly said, according to La Stampa. He did so on 9 July, a year ahead of the maximum retirement age and a few days after being acquitted by the Court of Cassation at the end of the trial for dereliction of duty, in which he had been convicted at first instance and on appeal alongside his colleague Sergio Spadaro as part of the Eni-Nigeria trial. De Pasquale’s career is marked by the investigations that led to the convictions of Craxi and Berlusconi and is inextricably linked to Eni, to which he devoted particular attention for thirty years, until his (De Pasquale’s) complete loss of credibility. De Pasquale presided over the ‘Trial of the Century’ on charges of international corruption concerning the alleged – and ultimately non-existent – largest bribe in history (over 1 billion euros), which was purportedly paid by Eni and Shell to secure an oil concession in Nigeria. In three separate trials, all the defendants were acquitted.

In the main case, it was actually the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office that requested an acquittal and attacked the work of the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office in the harshest and most unprecedented terms. De Pasquale had in his possession some important evidence in favour of Eni, but decided not to submit it. After two convictions, the Court of Cassation overturned the judgement. The closure of the criminal proceedings, however, left the disciplinary proceedings before the High Council of the Judiciary (CSM) still pending. Now, with De Pasquale’s resignation, these proceedings too have lapsed. But a judgement on this matter remains, which the CSM had already delivered by denying De Pasquale the role of deputy public prosecutor: “It has been demonstrated that Mr De Pasquale lacks the prerequisites of impartiality and balance, having repeatedly exercised his judicial authority in a manner that was neither objective nor fair towards the parties, and without a sense of proportion or moderation”. There was no longer any point in continuing; on this point, De Pasquale is right.