Meloni's Trumpian attack on justice

This is more than the usual squabble against a judiciary supposedly in cahoots with the left and bent on sabotaging the government’s work. The reason for the over-the-top tone is above all the demands of an election campaign already under way.

It was an unprecedented attack, which made Silvio Berlusconi’s old tirades look like pleasantries. 

On Wednesday, October 28, the prime minister, her deputy prime ministers and the entire governing majority lashed out at Tiziana Landoni, the Milan preliminary investigations judge, guilty of refusing to confirm the detention of Youssef Siher. (Translator’s note: Siher is accused of running the Movimento 17 ottobre – “October 17 Movement” – Telegram page that played a role in organizing the Milan protests on that date.) To find other examples of such a tone, one has to look across the Atlantic, to Donald Trump’s outbursts and his loudly voiced intolerance of any form of separation of powers.

This time Giorgia Meloni was lightning fast. The ruling had barely been made public when she was already churning out a video as virulent as it was short. She needed less than a minute to come out with all guns blazing: 

“Let me say it bluntly: I consider shameful the decision by the Milan preliminary investigations judge not to confirm the arrest of Youssef Siher, who is accused of running the Telegram page ‘Movimento 17 ottobre’ – in other words, the page that was inciting the organization of the demonstrations that we then saw lead to the devastation of several businesses in Milan. I think this is an intolerable affront to the work of the police, of the investigators, of the Interior Ministry and, in general, of all those who strive to defend decent people from the risk of seeing their........

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