ABSTRACT: A collection of documents on the radicals' libertarian antifascism: to recognize fascism means to understand what it has been and above all what it can be. Apparent antifascism too often hides a complicity with those who represented the true continuity with fascism, the reprise of laws and methods typical of that regime. (" WE AND THE FASCISTS", The radicals' libertarian antifascism, edited by Valter Vecellio, preface by Giuseppe Rippa - Quaderni Radicali/1, November 1980)
In the course of a press conference held at Radical Party headquarters, Marco Pannella made an appeal to the 62 defendants of Avanguardia Nazionale (a far-right Fascist group, ed.) to reject the line of defence chosen by their organisation and to name Radical lawyers as their defenders. "We commit ourselves to defending them" - Pannella said - "even against possible reprisals that might take place in prison".
"When the trial opens our attorneys will be ready to accept their nomination".
The press conference was called to explain the reasons that had induced the attorneys Franco de Cataldo and Mauro Mellini to take on the defence of several defendants in the trial for the reconstitution of the PNF (National Fascist Party) which was brought against 62 supposed members of Avanguardia Nazionale. The two attorneys however announced that they were retracting their offer to take on the defence in this case because one of the conditions they had put was annulled: the A.N. defendants had in fact renounced their right to raise preliminary questions and objections of unconstitutionality at the opening of the trial.
"At this point the nature of the clash is clear", Pannella said, "and it is between us and the A.N.". Pannella then explained the reasons why the Radical Party and the May 13 League (1) had accepted the defence in this trial along with Mellini and De Cataldo and the other Radical and libertarian lawyers. "The state reserves the right to judge in a Fascist manner. And it can judge in a Fascist manner thanks to the Reale law which is in reality a law to put in force the Rocco code (the old Fascist penal code, ed.). This is a right that we contest on anyone's part, particularly those who claim to exercise it in the name of anti-Fascism and the Constitution". Pannella said that there were hundreds of Fascists in Italy who had behaved like killers for the regime and who are co-responsible for terrorist actions, massacres and provocations. "No proceedings are being brought against them for these acts. There is a preference for starting ideological and political proceedings that will raise these killers and a
ccomplices to the rank of "victims" of the "regime". The whole range of political parties has attacked us for our choice form the extraparliamentary far left to the secretaries of PRI (Italian Republican Party, ed.) sections - that is to say, the secretaries of sections of the Hons. Mammi and Reale's party. Now the we have come full circle: the A.N. defendants renounce conducting the preliminary battle, political and juridical, against the Rocco code and the Reale and Scelba laws. They are defending this trial that assigns them the role of
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1) A group founded by Marco Pannella to support the referendum to legalise abortion, ed.
"victims" and it is as victims that they are convenient to the regime that is trying them. And they are defending their legality that expresses itself in those three laws that are the cause of their being in prison and on trial".
De Cataldo and Mellini as well as the PR Secretary Gianfranco Spadaccia participated in the press conference.
De Cataldo said he received the offer to conduct the defence from other lawyers, while Mellini had been named by one of the defendants, a young Milanese, Stefano Trentini. "When I learned of the decision to renounce the preliminary battle I told my client that I my participation in the defence would be conditioned by the possibility of conducting the legal battle without any limits on my mandate".
The attorneys in the last few days had declared the following three points to be preliminary conditions for taking on the defence:
a) that at least 10 Radical or May XIII League defence attorneys be named (of the 130 to which the defendants theoretically have a right);
b) that they were absolutely free to conduct the defence according to their juridical and civil convictions, thus contesting right from the preliminary phase the constitutionality of the Fascist, Christian Democratic and Republican laws which had led to the trial;
c) that the defence would not take the form of a single legal staff. The attorneys explained to journalists that in the N.A. trial no act of violence has been attributed to the defendants but only political and ideological offences.
Gianfranco Spadaccia said that despite the converging attacks that have been made, the Radical Party secretary had not hesitated in giving support to the two attorneys: "We are used", he said, "to having to face the most important legal battles in isolation at the start. However there is always a moment of truth when the attacks we have been subjected to get what they deserve. There was no need to wait for the trial. The moment of truth arrived first when the defendants refused to accept a libertarian defence conducted by libertarian lawyers: That trial would not have been a Fascist trial but a Radical, libertarian and anti-Fascist trial".
(" Notizie Radicali ", January 24, 1976)
