Lo Voi’s letter scuppers the vote on Delmastro (who eventually sends his chat logs to the prosecutors)

A form of pressure on Parliament. There is no other way to describe the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office’s initiative regarding the Delmastro case. On Thursday, the Chamber of Deputies (following the Authorisations Committee’s negative opinion) was due to decide whether or not to authorise the use of chat records between the former undersecretary and restaurateur Mauro Caroccia, who is under investigation for money laundering and the use of front companies. An hour before the vote, however, Chamber President Fontana received a letter in which Rome’s Public Prosecutor Lo Voi once again reminded the Chamber of the importance of giving the go-ahead for the acquisition of the chat records, attaching them on a CD. The vote was called off and the committee chairman, Devis Dori (AVS), decided to make the chat logs available to MPs, infuriating the majority. Hoping to put an end to the controversy, Delmastro announced in the evening that he had sent the chat logs to the public prosecutors.

“I have forwarded to Public Prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi, via certified email, the correspondence relating to the chats at the centre of the recent controversy, as I have nothing to hide,” stated former Under-Secretary of State for Justice Andrea Delmastro in a note. “I hope that the unacceptable exploitation of the situation by a certain political faction – which has tried to stir up trouble and has only stirred up mud, even though I am not even under investigation – will now cease,” he added.

Delmastro’s decision, however, will not affect the authorisation procedure currently underway in Parliament, as parliamentary immunity does not apply to individual MPs. At most, the former undersecretary’s decision could prompt the majority to give the green light to the use of the chat logs.

Meanwhile, President Dori has ruled that the ten members of the Montecitorio Authorisations Committee will be able to consult, from Friday morning, the documentation sent to the Chamber by Prosecutor Lo Voi, including the chat logs produced by Caroccia’s defence counsel, contained on a CD which, it must be assumed, has never been opened by Lo Voi himself as he was not authorised to do so. Dori took this decision despite opposition from the majority, explaining that he had “a duty, as President, to safeguard the right of all members of the committee to examine the documentation in order to gain a complete picture”.

To tell the truth, Lo Voi’s letter arrived at the Chamber of Deputies after the deadline – in fact, an hour before the Chamber’s scheduled vote, although, curiously, it had been reported the previous evening by some press agencies. It was the Speaker of the Chamber, Lorenzo Fontana, who reported that he had received the letter from the Rome Public Prosecutor an hour before the meeting of the group leaders. Lo Voi’s move threw the parliamentary schedule into disarray: the vote in the Chamber was cancelled; the meeting of group leaders decided to refer the matter concerning authorisation for the use of the chat logs back to the committee; finally, Chairman Dori took the decision to allow committee members to view the CD containing the chat logs between Delmastro (who is not under investigation) and Caroccia.

The decision has angered the majority, which has formally asked President Fontana to convene the Rules Committee. Dori “should at least have waited for the plenary session, given that proceedings were already under way in the committee and had been referred back to the Chamber”, stated Pietro Pittalis (FI). “This rush only serves to turn it into a political issue,” he added, “undermining the role of the committee, which should be a body of guarantee but has instead been transformed into a political tribunal for the minority’s use. He cannot expect to reduce the committee to a branch of the AVS or the ‘broad coalition’.” Pittalis went on to clarify that “we are asking Fontana to consult Dori and, in his capacity as Speaker of the Chamber, to consider whether to postpone” the viewing of the chat logs “pending a ruling by the Chamber”.

FdI has also joined the call, emphasising that Dori’s decision “sets a precedent”.

On closer inspection, it is not only the decision of the chair of the Authorisations Committee that sets a precedent, but also the conduct of the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office. Indeed, never before has a public prosecutor’s office sent a letter directly to the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies just minutes before a vote in the Chamber, particularly given that the committee had already conducted its preliminary investigation and, by a majority, expressed an opinion against the request put forward by the public prosecutor’s office itself.

In short, the impression is that Prosecutor Lo Voi, anticipating that the Chamber would also refuse to allow the use of Delmastro’s chat logs, intervened in an attempt to influence the Chamber’s decision. The Public Prosecutor’s Office will certainly deny this impression, arguing that it is important for Parliament to reach its decision whilst having all the relevant material at its disposal. The point, however, is that the committee’s refusal to authorise the use of the chats between Delmastro and Caroccia was not based on the content of the conversations (which is entirely irrelevant in this case), but rather on the flaws in the request itself submitted by the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office. Indeed, the request was deemed to fall short of the requirements of necessity, specificity, selectivity and proportionality laid down by Article 68 of the Constitution, the implementing legislation and constitutional case law. The public prosecutor’s office would do well to reflect on its own mistakes.