Rome. Looking back at the mudslinging, the dust, the suggestion of a ‘Milan system’ behind major urban development projects, and the headlines that bounce off a mayor, a councillor, a renowned architect and a manager, treating them as guilty before the charges even reach court: Today, a year and a half later, we discuss this with Giorgio Gori, the Democratic Party MEP and former mayor of Bergamo, at a time when it has emerged that none of this was true in the aforementioned large-scale investigation. Now that the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office has requested dismissal of the case against centre-left Mayor Beppe Sala, former councillor Giancarlo Tancredi, architect Stefano Boeri and Coima Group CEO Manfredi Catella, that mudslinging serves as a reminder that it could happen again, unless this political-media-judicial approach is put to an end. What message for today emerges from that investigation and this outcome regarding the relationship between politics and the judiciary? “What emerges is what we ought to know,” says Gori, “and yet we show time and again that we have not learnt it. Namely, that an accusation is very different from a conviction, and that treating an accusation as proof of guilt – by the media as well as by politicians – leads not only to hasty judgements, but to a form of preventive criminalisation that causes enormous damage to the rule of law, to the accused and to the institutions, which are in turn dragged through the mud’. Gori describes the Milan affair as “a ‘Mani Pulite’ on a smaller scale” which “has repeated the vicious circle we have seen a thousand times before, and from which it seems impossible to escape: the judiciary mistaking potentially questionable behaviour for a criminal offence, the media rushing to pillory the accused, and the political sphere failing, with a few exceptions, to find the courage to assert its independence. Fortunately, justice is not made up solely of investigations and charges, but contains within it the safeguards that allow the truth to emerge. But at what cost?”. The price was high for Milan as well, Gori notes. “What about the standstill on building sites, the impact on businesses and the resulting loss of jobs? All’s well that ends well, one might argue. But the damage remains, including a housing crisis that the investigation has helped to exacerbate.” The Milanese PD had, at the time, called for ‘a break with the past’. What can be said, in light of this request to dismiss the case? “There was a moment,” says Gori, “when the Milan city council seemed to have become a hot potato, even for some of those who were supposed to defend it, at least from a political point of view. I hope that certain statements can now be re-evaluated. A break with the past is, in any case, bound to occur, given that Beppe Sala will no longer be the mayor of Milan in a few months’ time, and much has changed since his arrival at Palazzo Marino. It is clear that a new political cycle will have to be built on somewhat different foundations. But that call for ‘discontinuity’ meant something else.” What? “That ‘something else’ is not justified – in my view – except by acknowledging a specific limitation in the actions of the centre-left councils that have taken turns in office in Milan over the last fifteen years. Not a lack of ambition, but a lack of scale: namely, the fact that they have confined themselves to the administrative boundaries of Milan, when it is clear that no process – whether of growth or of adjustment in the sense of equity – can be effectively managed except within the framework of the Metropolitan City. This, then, is the break with the past that I hope for: that the next mayor of Milan and his council be given the tools – the powers, resources and responsibilities – to build Milan’s future on the scale that most accurately corresponds to the city’s ‘real’ dimensions.” The centre-left is about to draw up its manifesto. Should we not resist those (such as the M5S, though with sirens tempting even a section of the Democrats) who want to reinstate the offence of abuse of office? “As mayor, I fought for years for the abolition of that offence, the ill-advised application of which by the investigating magistrates led to the indictment – accompanied by serious damage to their reputations – of thousands of local administrators and public officials, whilst only a negligible percentage – less than 2 per cent – of those investigated were ultimately convicted. It would be the last thing we’d want if now – after it has been abolished – it were my political party that were to reinstate it!”
