Don’t attack the rule of law: lessons from the Roggero case

Watching “Odissea”, Nolan’s sensational film, whilst the Roggero affair was unfolding, helps to clear one’s thoughts. It reminds us, first and foremost, that revenge is a formidable human emotion, a natural and unquenchable impulse, because it arises, by definition, from having suffered a wrong. There’s no point in pointing a finger and lecturing on morality: they broke into my shop, beat up my wife, terrified my daughter, held a gun to my head, and took away the fruits of my labour. In Homer’s Greece, private vengeance was a duty of honour (timè); refusing to carry it out was a mark of infamy. Ulysses, who carries out a horrific massacre of the suitors because they invaded his home, threatened his wife and humiliated his son, is the hero of us all. Then came Aeschylus, in the fifth century BC, to take it upon himself to explain to humanity that revenge, as giants such as Seneca and Plato would later say, is ‘the disease of the soul’. Orestes feels compelled to kill his mother, Clytemnestra, because she and her lover had murdered his father, Agamemnon. A spiral of death and violence with no end in sight must be brought to a halt, and so Athena establishes the Areopagus Court, decreeing that from that moment on, justice would no longer be administered privately, but by a judge. Our civilisation – yes, Western civilisation – was born then, in the fifth century BC, even though the massacre of the suitors continues to thrill us, and we want to watch it over and over again. So it comes as no surprise to me at all that this shapeless, headless and identity-less beast, which daily spews forth on social media the vitriol of all the most shameless impulses of summary justice, frustration and thirst for social vengeance seething in the bowels of ‘public opinion’, is cheering on the gun-toting jeweller. That is to be expected. The tragedy is not this; the tragedy is the politics that run after it, coaxing and winking at the beast in the illusion of winning its support, whilst ignoring the fact that this beast is simply insatiable. You can feed it all the most imaginative counter-reforms you like; it will always want more. Perhaps not even the introduction of a single clause will be enough: ‘No one shall be punished for committing any offence in response to any wrong suffered’.

And so Salvini, who in 2019 triumphantly announced to the whole world the epoch-making reform of self-defence, now says that his very own reform is no longer enough; we must give even more scope to those who suffer a wrong, and we must guarantee impunity to the honourable man who avenges a wrong. And by doing what, pray tell? What, then, is this scandal that is being shouted about in these heated days? Is it clear to you or not that the Areopagus Court, having acknowledged the impossibility of applying the defence of self-defence to Roggero – given the blindingly obvious evidence of the absence of any imminent threat to his own life and safety or that of his loved ones at the time of the murders – imposed on him the minimum sentence provided for by law? Because that is precisely what happened. President Meloni, more astute than Salvini, has dropped the self-defence argument and is now speaking of a ‘disproportionate sentence’. I wonder how it is possible that no one has whispered in her ear that the offence of simple voluntary manslaughter is punishable by law with a sentence of ‘not less than 21 years’. Here, there are two counts of voluntary manslaughter, plus one count of attempted murder. Is it possible that people – including those with the institutional responsibility to lead the country, and with it the duty to explain to citizens the force and rationale of the law precisely when it is most difficult for them to be understood – continue to complain about the judges’ alleged failure to take into account Roggero’s state of mind, which was shaken by the insult he suffered, when one need only read the judgement to realise that the judges, on the contrary, did so to the fullest extent permitted, granting both general mitigating circumstances (a first reduction of one-third of the sentence) and the mitigating circumstance of provocation – that is, having acted in an uncontrolled manner due to a state of rage caused by another’s wrongful act (a second reduction of one-third of the sentence)? So in what respect is the sentence disproportionate, President Meloni? Fourteen years and six months for two murders and a third that, fortunately, was only attempted, is the minimum sentence that can be imposed; it is a lenient sentence and – I might add – a justly and sacrosanctly lenient one. Could Roggero have received a shorter sentence? Yes, indeed, he could have had his sentence reduced by a further third had he chosen to proceed under the summary procedure (simple murder does not preclude this). He did not do so, and he will have had his very good reasons, which he may wish to share with us if he sees fit, but if Roggero did not receive an even more lenient sentence (which would then have been less than 10 years), it was due to his own procedural choice; what is certain is that the judges did everything they could and should have done.

Which law are we seeking to change, in this frantic race to see who can make the most outrageous claim to curry favour with the social media ‘Beast’: to reduce the minimum sentence for murder? To impose different penalties if the murderer is over seventy? I wonder, then, how it is possible to fuel, with such irresponsible insistence, the worst impulses of the country, of the human soul, of our very guts. If anything, let us discuss – there is plenty of time for that – the issue of compensation. Here, yes, it is right to expect the civil court to give due consideration to the fact that those claiming compensation have contributed decisively, through violent and unlawful action, to setting in motion the chain of events that led to the murder. To even consider abolishing the right to compensation for damages, as provided for in yet another ‘security’ decree, strikes me as an absurdity destined to survive only a few months before being struck down by the Constitutional Court; to expect, on the other hand, the judge to award a severely limited amount of damages seems to me to be in line with the most basic sense of justice. It is therefore appropriate to feel and be close to the Roggero family, just as it is appropriate to proclaim loudly that the judges (especially those of the Court of Appeal) have taken into account the tragedy experienced and interpreted by this man with the utmost consideration permitted by law. As for the rest, Ulysses, our hero, who wipes out the accursed suitors, let us continue to love him unreservedly and without restraint, but let us prefer to see him only on the big screen.