International Free Port of Trieste: the Italian judiciary’s “escape judgments”

Trieste, 16 June 2023. – The International Provisional Representative of the Free Territory of Trieste – I.P.R. F.T.T.’s legal battle against the violations of Trieste’s taxation rights and of the rights of all States and their enterprises over Trieste’s international Free Port continues causing the escape of the Italian judges from their own Constitutional obligation to demonstrate and enforce the Italian laws in force that recognize those rights.

The escape route of choice of all Italian judges who, so far, were requested compliance with that legal obligation consists in refusing to comply with it issuing judgments where they falsely claim that no Italian Court has jurisdiction on the matter.

In truth, so far no Italian judge was brave enough to enforce the legislation on the subject because that would mean standing against the strong, illegal pressing of politicians and speculators who can as also target with retaliations any magistrate who counters them.

The consequence of those Italian judges’ “escape judgments” is a scandalous denial of justice on breaches of rights enshrined in the law as well as of the Italian Republic’s international obligations.

Two new documents.

This series of “escape judgments” does now include two new, relevant documents, to which the I.P.R. F.T.T. is already prepared to react with all the instruments made available within both Italian law itself and international law.

One of the two new acts regards civil lawsuit No. 5209/2019, initiated before the Trieste civil Court to dispute severe violations of the international Free Port regime and to challenge the Port Authority’s illegal agreements with the People’s Republic of China’s state-owned enterprises (LINK).

Those violations were and are evident and perfectly documented, as is the urgency of the measures needed to stop them.

Instead, the Trieste’s civil Court dragged the lawsuit for almost four years, reassigning it to a new judge four times, and allowed the breaches of law to continue by refusing to issue the urgent precautionary measures.

Finally, the fourth and last judge issued a judgment that refuses examining the proceeding in the merit by declaring absolute lack of jurisdiction.

With such actions, and with parallel identical decision of the Land Registry Office, the Trieste civil Court did also allow the undisturbed continuing of severe illegal actions committed by the municipal Administration of mayor Dipiazza at the expenses of public assets of the so-called “Porto vecchio” as in “old port” (LINK).

For those reasons, the judgment is being promptly impugned before the Trieste Court of second instance. We are going to publish the Writ of appeal to facilitate the comprehension of the case’s seriousness and of its implications’ extension, even internationally.

Furthermore, to issue the judgment, the local Court waited for the Italian Court of Cassation to express itself on the instance of annulment based on factual errors of the judgment with which the Joint Session claimed absolute lack of jurisdiction in the lawsuit regarding Trieste’s taxation rights (LINK).

The action for annulment was perfectly grounded, however, the Italian Court of Cassation got rid of the inconvenience with an ordinance that confirms the errors within the impugned judgment, however, against truth, it deems them procedural and legal errors instead of factual errors. And under Italian law such errors do not constitute ground for revocation.

Since the ordinance in question wasn’t published, we are providing our readers with the original Italian text (LINK).

In truth, this latest negative decision of the Italian Court of Cassation provides the ultimate evidence of the Italian judiciary’s denial of justice.

And now this allows the I.P.R. F.T.T. to both address international and European Union competent Courts, as well as to activate the special arbitral clauses envisioned by the 1947 Treaty of Peace with Italy, which is in full force.

The Italian Courts’ refusal to recognize and enforce the provisions of the Italian legal order itself that recognize Trieste’s legal status as well as its international Free Port’s do indeed constitute, at the same time, a breach of Community law, of international law, and of the free port, taxation, and trade rights of all States and of their enterprises (to which the I.P.R. F.T.T. can offer all needed consulting for them to defend their rights).

A “system” that corrupts public authorities.

The aforementioned “escape judgments” of Italian Courts that avoid the law come one after another, always identical and concerted, no matter the instance of judgement, from local Courts to the Cassation’s own Joint Session have also provided the ultimate evidences of a serious subversive threat to the Italian Republic’s Constitutional and democratic order.

Because they are evidences of the fact that the systematic refusal to comply with the Italian laws on the subject is not an autonomous choice of the judges involved, rather, it is borne of illegal political interferences on the judiciary’s independence as well as on compliance with the rule of law and with the State’s international obligations.

In other words, on two fundamental pillars of the Italian Republic’s Constitutional legal order as a democratic State.

This is the kind of interferences that reveal the activities of a “system” that corrupts democratic bodies, and the wideness of its operational efficacy from the Trieste legal district to the Court of Cassation in Rome does itself reveal that this “system” has branches and protections up to the national level.

The most evident proof of this is the very letter of the Italian legal measures in force which the judges addressed refused to even examine to escape their own obligation to enforce them.

Indeed, anybody can assess that it is legal measures with which the Italian Parliament and the Italian Government recognize, since 1947, both Trieste’s rights and the rights of all States and their enterprises over its international Free Port (LINK).

Another clear proof is in the fact that those judgments, pronounced in the Italian Republic’s name, not only deny the enforcement of its own laws, but are also contradictory as they aim to arbitrarily give raise to deceptive political effects and to measures to economically repress the exercise of fundamental rights.

Indeed, a declaration of absolute lack of jurisdiction prevents a Court from expressing itself in the merit of the proceeding, as well as requiring it to equally divide court fees between the parties (each party pays its own fees, because no decision in the merit was taken).

Instead, in both judgments in question the Courts order the I.P.R. F.T.T. to bear the costs of proceedings, and surreptitiously add to the declaration of absolute lack of jurisdiction the false claim that Trieste’s and its international Free Port’s rights established under the 1947 Treaty of Peace with Italy “do not exist and never existed”.

It is a claim not only disproved by Italian law itself, but bare of legal effects, hence it only has political purposes and uses.

Indeed, Italian judges of all instances, including those of the Court of Cassation, are bound to knowing and enforcing the State’s international obligation, however, they have no authority to deny or modify them, because that power that is vested on the Parliament and, eventually, on the Constitutional Court.

This decision of the Court of Cassation, therefore, cannot exempt other Italian judged or public officers from the personal obligation, within their official duties, to know and enforce laws in force as well as to prevent they violation, as it cannot exempt them from their personal criminal, civil, and adminsitrative liabilities established at art. 29 of the Italian Constitution and at art. 40, second paragraph of the Italian Criminal Code.

Indeed, that would constitute a political exploitation of the judgment, which lacks legal ground. And the fact that this exploitation is already occurring in Trieste in other Court documents, from the Civil Court to the Prosecution Office, as well as in documents of public officers from the Tax Revenue Agency to the Commissioner of the Government and Prefect, provides one more proof of the existence and the operational extension of the effective interferences of a local “system”.

Furthermore, a close examination of all documents of the proceeding confirm that the constant, arbitrary imposition of court fees on the I.P.R. F.T.T. is punitive in nature and aims at the political goal to ultimately dissuade it from seeking justice.

And this is an actual form of repression of the fundamental right to justices, protected under arts. 24 and 111 of the Italian Constitution, as well as under art. 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights, art. 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and arts. 8 and 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The self-evident proofs found in the latest documents are supported also by previous proofs found through a comparative historical review of the false claims regarding the lack of existence of Trieste’s and its international Free Port’s rights as used in judgments, even administrative ones, in Land Registry acts, and for statements of local and national political and administrative bodies ever since 2013.

Indeed, analyses of the contents, sequence, and coordination of the whole complex of those documents emphasize that those false claims were drawn on drafts provided by one only source, outside the judiciary, which is active in Trieste but does also provide the same false information to central offices of the Italian Government.

It follows that there is no reasonable doubt on the fact that the systematic breaches of the laws regarding Trieste’s and its international Free Port’s rights is organized, covered, and supported by a “system” that corrupts the authorities by illegally interfering with the exercise of their roles of Constitutional bodies and public authorities (art. 1 of Italian Law No. 17/1982).

Indeed, there is corruption in public authorities whenever they breach, no matter the reason, the laws and rights they have the legal obligation to defend.

And, in Trieste, this “system” that corrupts public authorities could even seek out European funds from the Italian recovery plan to supports mayor Dipiazza’s municipal Administration’s illegal operations over the so-called “Porto vecchio” (old port).

The Italian Government should therefore put an end to this state of public illegality in the administration of Trieste and of the international Free Port before those scandals become irremediable.

F.W.

Author of the English version: Silvia Verdoljak.

© 16 Giugno 2023