ABSTRACT: SCIASCIA SPEAKS ON THE CIVIL RESPONSIBILITY OF JUDGES IN AN INTERVIEW WITH RADICAL RADIO GIVING THE REASONS OF HIS YES VOTE. "IT IS A REFERENDUM ON A CONCRETE PROBLEM. NOT EVEN THE MOST FANATICAL SUPPORTER OF NON-RESPONSIBILITY CAN ASSERT THAT THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN ITALY IS GOOD. THE REFERENDUM POSES THE PROBLEM AND WHATEVER THE OUTCOME MAY BE IT WILL HAVE TO BE DEALT WITH. THERE IS NEED FOR CONCERN ABOUT THE TACIT PACT BETWEEN JOURNALISTS AND THE MAGISTRACY WITH WHICH THE PROBLEM OF THE REFERENDUM IS PACKED. THE NEWSPAPERS WOULD DO WELL TO CONCERN THEMSELVES WITH CASES OF ORDINARY INJUSTICE... THE DANGEROUS CRIES OF PAIN OF THE JUDGES. I KNOW THERE ARE JUDGES WHO ARE IN FAVOUR OF THE REFERENDUM. THE ITALIAN PEOPLE ARE BETTER THAN THEIR RULING CLASS, AND NOT ONLY THE POLITICAL ONE. WE ARE AWAITING WITHOUT FANATICISM FOR THE RESULTS OF THE VOTE." ON THE NUCLEAR QUESTION SCIASCIA EXPRESSES HIS ASTONISHMENT ON THE UNDERRATING OF REFERENDUMS ON A HIGHLY IMPORTANT PROBLEM.

(Notizie Radicali, October 26, 1987)

Rome, October 26 - Editor's note - The writer Leonardo Sciascia expressed his personal opinions and reflections during an interview he gave to Radical Radio. He told the interviewer Lino Jannuzzi:

"The referendum on the civil responsibility of magistrates is being rejected as if a dogma, an article of faith were being put into question. As if with the victory of the yes vote and the confirmation of the principle of the responsibility of the judge an entire edifice of faith would collapse, a conception of life...

"To me it seems instead to be a concrete problem.

"No one, not even the most fanatical partisan of the judges' non-responsibility or his sacredness, can come and tell me that the administration of justice in Italy is functioning well. It is functioning very badly! This is something one must recognise. Whatever the outcome of the referendum may be, the question has been posed and in some way it will have to be dealt with.

"The PCI [Italian Communist Party] too, ever since entering into the power system, no longer concerns itself with problems of justice as it did in the time when it was their target itself. I think the Communists' rank and file party members themselves are aware of this.

"There is the attitude of the newspapers who would do better to concern themselves with the cases of ordinary injustice that take place daily in Italy and a little less with the outcomes of the referendums, leaving much liberty to the Italians."

Sciascia was then asked about the relationship of the press and the magistracy and how the former have all joined the ranks of the No vote.

"This problem of the referendum is thick with the tacit pact between the journalists and the magistracy", he said "and is something to worry about. It is curious to see how they go hunting down stories and leaks, and lose sight of the good of the citizens which is to have proper justice".

Regarding the campaign several judges have launched against civil responsibility, Sciascia continued: "The judges who let loose these cries of pain and desperation, affirming that we will be on the road to ruin if the "yes" votes win a majority, make this question become so big that a defeat of the "no" vote really would mean a defeat for them, whereas it is a concrete problem regarding civil coexistence. I am certainly no enemy of the magistrates: my last book is in effect the eulogy of a magistrate, of a judge with scruples, who during Fascism does not want to apply the death sentence. He was faced with a question of conscience, because the point is always the same: no referendum, whatever its outcome, will ever be able to guarantee that the administration of justice is absolutely just unless every single judge practices his mission with conscience as well as science. I believe that at bottom there are judges who favour the referendum. One high magistrate came to tell me personally that he favours ci

vil responsibility. And for this reason he was the butt of irony on the part of his colleagues ('In any case I will soon be retiring...')". Sciascia concluded saying that "The Italian people are better than their ruling classes, and not only the political one."

During the interview Sciascia also spoke out on the referendum against nuclear power plants: "I don't understand how it is that the nuclear problem is becoming a question of the second order. Little is said about it in comparison to the one about justice, whereas it involves highly important choices."