Senator, elected on the Green List, member of the Radical Party

ABSTRACT: When she received Marco Pannella's (1) letter summoning "all" parliamentarians for "seven o'clock" meeting, she thought that was the right time for someone who, like herself, works "from half past eight well into the evening". She felt insulted by the articles on the press. She liked the atmosphere and the quality of the debate of those meetings, and in participating in them she never asked herself whether her neighbour "was under investigation or not". She believes Parliament is not the "hostage" of the parliamentarians under investigation, but that it is on the contrary "fully legitimate". As a radical and a civil rights libertarian, she chose to participate in those meetings to avoid a repetition of the past. She would be very happy if those meeting "started anew".

(1994 - IL QUOTIDIANO RADICALE, 25 November 1993)

When I received Marco Pannella's letter, summoning all representatives of the Chamber and Senate to a meeting at seven o'clock, she thought that was the appropriate time for someone who, like myself, works from half past eight in the morning well into the evening. I was unable to participate in the first meeting because I was in Sicily. But the articles on the various newspapers irritated me. Their headlines read "parliamentarians under investigation hold a meeting at seven o'clock" and described these meetings as a place where the parliamentarians allegedly conspired to save the deputies who had already received notices of investigation.

I wen to the subsequent meetings and I liked the atmosphere and the level of the debate, which was high and interesting. The discussion focused on the role of the parliamentarians and the functions of the institutions with a new freedom and new responsibilities. We felt, in other words, separated from the parties we belong to and that we were responsible only for our own actions. Despite the criticism on the press, I never once asked myself whether my neighbour was under investigation or not. I participated in those meetings because I believe Parliament is not a hostage of the parliamentarians under investigation, but that is instead fully legitimate. What I mean to say is that it is in the possession of its functions, and that it is working as hard as it ever has. Moreover, if this Parliament is not legitimate, were the previous parliaments, where the same representatives did nothing, legitimate? And yet in the past no one ever complained. The hypocrisy and the demagogy are all too evident.

As the wife of a Sicilian entrepreneur who was killed by the mafia for refusing to pay protection money, it would have been more convenient to take advantage of an easy populism and express indignation for the presence of MPs under investigation in these meetings. If I had not gone I would have increased by prestige.

But I am a radical and a civil rights libertarian. I do not believe in easy justice and in revenge, and I never felt this way, not even in front of Senator Andreotti, who is so heavily involved in matters that concern my personal life. I believe instead, at my age (65 and at my first institutional experience) that it is important to act to avoid a repetition of the past. That is why I am active in the Industry and public works commission, working elbow to elbow with MPs who have received notices of investigation.

I was sorry that the seven o'clock meetings stopped. If they continued I would be very glad to participate again.

Translator's notes

(1) PANNELLA MARCO. Pannella Giacinto, known as Marco. (Teramo 1930). Currently President of the Radical Party's Federal Council, which he is one of the founders of. At twenty national university representative of the Liberal Party, at twenty-two President of the UGI, the union of lay university students, at twenty-three President of the UNURI, national union of Italian university students. At twenty-four he advocates, in the context of the students' movement and of the Liberal party, the foundation of the new radical party, which arises in 1954 following the confluence of prestigious intellectuals and minor democratic political groups. He is active in the party, except for a period (1960-1963) in which he is correspondent for "Il Giorno" in Paris, where he established contacts with the Algerian resistance. Back in Italy, he commits himself to the reconstruction of the radical Party, dissolved by its leadership following the advent of the centre-left. Under his indisputable leadership, the party succeeds in

promoting (and winning) relevant civil rights battles, working for the introduction of divorce, conscientious objection, important reforms of family law, etc, in Italy. He struggles for the abrogation of the Concordat between Church and State. Arrested in Sofia in 1968 as he is demonstrating in defence of Czechoslovakia, which has been invaded by Stalin. He opens the party to the newly-born homosexual organizations (FUORI), promotes the formation of the first environmentalist groups. The new radical party organizes difficult campaigns, proposing several referendums (about twenty throughout the years) for the moralization of the country and of politics, against public funds to the parties, against nuclear plants, etc., but in particular for a deep renewal of the administration of justice. Because of these battles, all carried out with strictly nonviolent methods according to the Gandhian model - but Pannella's Gandhi is neither a mystic nor an ideologue; rather, an intransigent and yet flexible politician - h

e has been through trials which he has for the most part won. As of 1976, year in which he first runs for Parliament, he is always elected at the Chamber of Deputies, twice at the Senate, twice at the European Parliament. Several times candidates and local councillor in Rome, Naples, Trieste, Catania, where he carried out exemplary and demonstrative campaigns and initiatives. Whenever necessary, he has resorted to the weapon of the hunger strike, not only in Italy but also in Europe, in particular during the major campaign against world hunger, for which he mobilized one hundred Nobel laureates and preeminent personalities in the fields of science and culture in order to obtain a radical change in the management of the funds allotted to developing countries. On 30 September 1981 he obtains at the European parliament the passage of a resolution in this sense, and after it several other similar laws in the Italian and Belgian Parliament. In January 1987 he runs for President of the European Parliament, obtaini

ng 61 votes. Currently, as the radical party has pledged to no longer compete with its own lists in national elections, he is striving for the creation of a "transnational" cross-party, in view of a federal development of the United States of Europe and with the objective of promoting civil rights throughout the world.