Grace and self-defence

This is not a matter of personal bias or sensibility, nor should anyone presume to pull his sleeve, as if the Quirinale were an ATM dispensing pardons at the beck and call of every claim, often politicised and populist. However, it is certain that President Sergio Mattarella never overlooks such a significant prerogative of our legal system: he has signed over seventy pardons since becoming Head of State. The case of the three pardons signed today, however, deserves special attention.

Following the Ministry of Justice’s preliminary investigation, the President of the Republic granted a pardon to “A. A., born in 1972, sentenced to a total of seven years’ imprisonment for drug-related offences and other crimes”, who is suffering from extremely serious and irreversible health conditions. A clear humanitarian gesture. A sense of reconciliation with society and civic life is evident in the pardon granted to “G. B., born in 1981, sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for drug-related offences”. In this case, the Head of State took into account the “change in the convicted person’s life, who has already embarked upon and consolidated a path towards social, professional and family reintegration”. The case of Guido Gianni, aged 66, is yet another: he was sentenced to twelve years for double murder and attempted murder, committed in 2008, “in the course of an attempted robbery of which he was the victim inside his own jewellery shop”. A case that reignited the ever-contentious issue of self-defence, which the judges ruled out because the fatal shots were fired whilst the robbers were “already fleeing from the shop”. In this instance, Mattarella granted a partial pardon, remitting three years of his prison sentence, but Guidi will still have to serve the remainder of his prison term. In short, this is a measure of clemency, which may legitimately be granted even for a crime of this nature, but which is certainly not a free pass intended to wipe the offence from the record, as was demanded by many in the case of Mario Roggero.