The Farce of the Rule of Law

A colleague of Paolo Borsellino. They have selected this reference, from Antonio Ingroia’s extensive CV, to announce the former public prosecutor’s (new) entry into politics, this time alongside Ismaele La Vardera, leader of the Controcorrente movement. The jubilant announcement is accompanied by a smiling photograph bearing the name of the magistrate who was killed in Via D’Amelio by Cosa Nostra’s TNT. Running as a candidate in the regional elections in the province of Trapani, Ingroia “has decided to put himself forward for the vote,” explains the post. As if there were any other way, in Sicily, to get elected to the Regional Assembly.

A colleague of Paolo Borsellino, they point out, however. A proud, symbolic reference. But also a sign of a return, in the never-ending farce of the rule of law. It is the ‘colleague of’, ‘son of’, ‘relative of’ narrative. In Ingroia’s case, that is enough. There is no need, in the emotional announcement, to recall his failed political ventures, from Rivoluzione Civile to Azione Civile and on to the Lista del Popolo. Nor, for that matter, his unsuccessful bid for mayor of Campobello di Mazara. Or, perhaps, his experiences in local administration and sub-government roles.

Then again, if one wanted to, a way of talking about the Mafia could have been found there too. It’s part of the well-worn plot of the comedy. When Rosario Crocetta decided to appoint him as head of the regional tax collection agency, Ingroia accepted, convinced that he would finally be able to get his hands on a sector that had represented ‘a hub of Sicily’s economic or political-mafia system’. Thirty years earlier, but that matters little. Not least because Ingroia will not be taking that seat. Blame it on the law, which sometimes short-circuits: the former public prosecutor’s ambitions clashed with the views of the High Council of the Judiciary, which refused to authorise the appointment. Never mind. You just have to look for the Mafia. And at Sicilia e-servizi, the digital company that Ingroia led through a few difficulties, there was none other than a relative of the Mafia figure Francesco Bontate: she was sacked, along with fifteen other people, but was later reinstated by a labour court judge. The Mafia was certainly present in the fugitive’s home region, where Ingroia would have kept a watchful eye had he only been given the time. Had those ‘bad guys’ from the Anti-Corruption Authority – led for just a few months by magistrate Raffaele Cantone – not intervened, declaring Ingroia’s second post, that of commissioner of the already dissolved province of Trapani, to be incompatible. Not as a police commissioner, but as a bureaucrat responsible for the day-to-day running of an entity scheduled for dissolution. This clarification is necessary, given that at the time Crocetta had announced, without batting an eyelid: ‘We’re sending Ingroia to the province of the fugitive Matteo Messina Denaro’. Turning the farce into a comedy. Upon closer inspection, the figure of the Mafia hunter who would clean up even the back rooms of public administration is, in Sicily, a veritable literary trope. The plots recur with recurring characters. And in recent times, the genre seems to be captivating the public once again.

Fortunately, in the meantime, the investigators have made progress and, in Palermo, the Public Prosecutor’s Office – effectively led by Maurizio De Lucia – has indeed succeeded in arresting the fugitive. A dozen years on from Ingroia’s appointment to the province, the recent announcement of the former public prosecutor’s return to the Trapani area is somewhat vague: “What for some was, unfortunately, the territory of Matteo Messina Denaro will, tomorrow, help elect an upright individual who has fought against the system,” announces La Vardera in his jubilant post, which invokes the name of Borsellino.

In short, the fugitive has been apprehended. What remains are ‘the systems’. That is to say, the shadow that stretches out time and again, in Sicily, across the stage of good intentions. There, where the script of palingenetic legality is endlessly re-enacted.

The case becomes trite and pedantic when, while discussing comedy and irony, it leads to Agrigento, where La Vardera’s (and Ingroia’s) movement achieved a highly significant electoral result – even ‘historic’, as those who never stray from those parts would say. In the hyperbole of politics, dismantling the ‘system’ (yes, let’s use that term too) that has underpinned the centre-right’s dominance for decades was a challenge far from straightforward. It was achieved by a former member of the Five Star Movement, Michele Sodano, who has since joined La Vardera’s camp. An exhilarating election campaign, side by side, full of roses and flowers. Until the day the movement’s leader hosted a politically significant convention in Agrigento. “The deputy mayor must step down,” thundered La Vardera from that stage. The target of his criticism was a certain Giovanni Crosta, guilty on two counts: of having inherited the surname of an elderly and controversial Cuffaro-era bureaucrat, and also of owning an unauthorised property. “Out of the council, out of the party,” La Vardera declared, whilst his mayor played the role of the defender of due process, claiming he had “only learnt from the press” about the decisions of the former Iena presenter, who in the meantime had issued him with an invitation “to come to his senses”. The second-generation squatter, so the accusation goes, is said to have lied to the party leadership about that unauthorised property: “Out!”

For many in Sicily, this small story called to mind another. It was at the height of Crocetta’s ‘revolutionary’ government, whose revelations and accusations were shouted out daily on Massimo Giletti’s Rai programme L’Arena, where the governor from Gela and a few of his hardline acolytes would point their little fingers at mafia members and ‘manciugghia’ (meaning waste and mismanagement) wherever they found them. Mafiosi and ‘manciugghia’ among the forest rangers, in the land reclamation consortia, in politics, in regional companies, and even in the management of the birds at Palazzo d’Orleans. A commendable endeavour, had it not been for the fact that, just a few years later, history (including the judicial record) revealed that this legalistic fervour was underpinned by a healthy dose of instrumental hypocrisy: propping up the Crocetta government, in fact, was what some called the ‘Montante system’. There it is, the real system. A web of business dealings, dossiers and politics that used a zero-tolerance approach to crime and the fight against organised crime as both a double-edged sword and a master key. Some of those dossiers, as is customary in dramas on the subject, were kept in what the system’s key players themselves called ‘the chamber of legality’. In those years of intrigue and scandal, however, speaking of dossiers, a young administrator – who later died prematurely – also fell victim to the system: Mariarita Sgarlata, a councillor in Crocetta’s administration who soon fell out of favour with the governor and the ‘system’, was ousted from the council. The reason? An unauthorised swimming pool. Legality, above all else. Which absolved no one. It was a pity that, shortly afterwards, it emerged that the swimming pool was not unauthorised at all. Nor was it even a swimming pool. ‘Out!’ was the cry, meanwhile.

Those were the years when Ingroia – though he was not the only one – held the key that opened every door to the inner workings of government. A dozen years on, at the Controcorrente event, nothing seems to have changed. Ingroia will sit on a panel to discuss the rule of law alongside Nicolò Marino, another valiant anti-Mafia prosecutor who was on the front line during the Crocetta era. The governor from Gela had to wait several days before he could officially announce his appointment as head of the Department of Energy (a post in Sicily that, it seemed, could only be filled by former magistrates or, at a pinch, former prefects). The public prosecutor, however, would take just a few months to lift the lid, pointing the finger, precisely, at the great sham that is the anti-Mafia movement. Just a few days ago, the former staunch loyalist of Crocetta and the former councillor who was the first to denounce, from within, the grave vices and corruption of the ‘Crocettism’ movement were side by side. A few hours later, at another panel discussion in Agrigento, it was Sonia Alfano’s turn. She, too, had been part of the ‘sub-government of legality’, heading organisations dealing with waste management. The daughter of Beppe, a great journalist murdered by the Mafia, she has drifted from one role to another in recent years, even ending up at Carlo Calenda’s ‘Azione’. Now, her move to Controcorrente may restore to Alfano – the first chair of the European Anti-Mafia Commission – the role that suits her best.

In short, characters, roles, catchphrases and the travelling troupes of what was a period of hype, theatrics and – in administrative terms – flops, investigations and confusion are resurfacing. Meanwhile, fragments of the ‘Crocetta world’ have ended up in practically every party and every political sphere. Yet the impression is that, on the island, something has changed in the meantime. It was precisely that experience that ended up laying bare the limitations of the most crass form of legalistic populism, which was also championed by an aggressive Five Star Movement—one whose posturing and style are a world away from that of Giuseppe Conte, who likes to claim the party’s new ‘guarantee-oriented’ stance. But that is precisely the point: the experience of those years ended up blowing the very yardsticks of legality to smithereens. And so, whilst until a few years ago, in this never-ending farce, it was easy to identify the roles of accuser and outcast, inquisitor and sinner, today politicians, in some cases, tread a fine line of uncertain common sense, trying to be upholders of the law without appearing to be bloodthirsty, or defenders of civil liberties without seeming complicit. Both positions are reinvigorated from time to time by current events and real-life examples. Whilst the memory of the sometimes appalling excesses of the Crocetta era blunts the weapons of the new moralists, the long and varied string of investigations involving Sicily’s centre-right continues to fuel the sacrosanct demand for clean hands.

As a result, one finds oneself in a state of limbo. This is also the case for another incisive independent figure such as Cateno De Luca, who is currently presenting the candidates for the upcoming regional elections: in that instance as well, the lineup is a mixed bag, including combative former Crocetti supporters from day one or from the sixth day, alongside former Cuffaro administrators who have come under the scrutiny of the regional Anti-Mafia Commission.

The resulting text is often difficult to follow. This is the case with Caterina Chinnici, daughter of Rocco, an outstanding magistrate who was also killed by the Mafia. Called upon some fifteen years ago to serve on the regional executive led by Raffaele Lombardo, the regional president who would later find himself under investigation for Mafia links – a case that ended in his full acquittal – she has now stepped into the role of governor herself, standing as a candidate in the centre-left primaries in 2022. By her side are her fellow campaigners, Claudio Fava and Barbara Floridia. Travelling around Sicily, they outlined their programme to defeat the centre-right, mired in scandals and inefficiency. Those primaries would end in disaster: Chinnici would win them, but in the end the parties would each go their separate ways. Rocco’s daughter challenged Renato Schifani, finishing only third, behind Cateno De Luca. But the future held some surprises: symbols of the rule of law, after all, come in handy for everyone at any time. Even to ‘soften’ narratives and bad tastes. So, a few months later, Chinnici found her standing as a candidate for the European elections for none other than Forza Italia. Yes, the party of the rival governor. Marcello Dell’Utri’s party. The party which, in that European Parliament election, would not turn its nose up at the far from negligible vote share of a certain Salvatore Cuffaro who, speaking of the anti-Mafia movement, had already served a sentence for aiding and abetting.

In short, following the fortunes of the characters in this farce of the legal system risks leaving you feeling dizzy and losing the thread. Taking Cuffaro as an example, the latest investigation by the Palermo Public Prosecutor’s Office – which has swept the former governor away, effectively forcing him into yet another compulsory departure from politics – has presented the incumbent Regional President, Schifani, with a dilemma regarding his stance: do I champion due process at the risk of being branded a friend of the ‘schemers’, or do I take a hard line, betraying a long political tradition? The dilemma is easily summarised: Schifani ended up taking the legalist line in the early hours of the investigation, under media pressure, when very little of the wiretaps and allegations had yet been scrutinised by a judge. This led to the ignominious sacking of the two Christian Democrat councillors, who had never been implicated or even investigated. Then came a slow rapprochement. ‘Provided the Christian Democrats change’, was the mantra of those days – promises akin to those of an unfaithful boyfriend asking for forgiveness: ‘I’ll change, but let me come back to you’. That is, back into the executive committee. However, it is precisely the most ‘Cuffarian’ of them all – Nuccia Albano – who will return. She will once again take her seat alongside Elvira Amata, a supporter of Meloni, who never left that executive committee. This is despite the fact that Amata herself had first been placed under investigation and then charged in a corruption trial. At the first hearing, someone pointed out a significant omission: the regional government had not joined the proceedings as a civil party. A failure to serve the summons, Palazzo d’Orleans was quick to point out, which also prompted, on 7 September, a curious press release with a very clear headline: ‘Amata Inquiry’, it read. “To safeguard the interests of the regional administration, in line with the intention already expressed and by analogy with what has occurred in the case of other co-defendants,” the press release continues, “the government will propose, at the executive committee meeting scheduled for tomorrow, that the Region of Sicily join the proceedings as a civil party.” The Schifani government will therefore propose that the Region be recognised as a civil party against Elvira Amata. The go-ahead will come from the executive committee of which Elvira Amata is a member.