Italy butchered mobsters’ rights by slamming door on parole

European judges said Mafia-linked prisoners should still be eligible for release even if they don't cooperate with prosecutors.(CN) — Italy unlawfully threw away the key on four Mafia-linked lifers whose sentences allowed parole, Europe’s human rights court ruled Thursday.The men were convicted of multiple murders and attempted killings, massacres, drug trafficking, extortion, weapons offenses and Mafia membership, mostly during the 1980s and early 1990s. Although sentenced to life, they were initially allowed to apply for release after 26 years. Italian judges later took that option away unless they cooperated with prosecutors.The European Court of Human Rights unanimously found the change eliminated any realistic path to release and unlawfully increased their punishment.Italian judges used a restrictive prison rule after interpreting the convictions as evidence the men used the “Mafia method.” Yet that aggravating factor wasn’t presented in three cases and was expressly rejected in the fourth. The interpretation came from case law developed in 2001, years after the crimes.Veronica Manca, an attorney who represented two of the prisoners and earned a doctorate in criminal law from the University of Trento, said the judgment preserved a role for Italian judges in deciding whether continued imprisonment remained justified.“It is not a matter of evading punishment or obtaining undeserved benefits, but rather of serving one’s sentence in compliance with legal principles and having the opportunity for a judge to assess the progress made with a view to release,” she said.Carlo Fiorio, a criminal procedure law professor at the University of Perugia, identified a crucial legal shift. “Converting a reducible life sentence into an irreducible one amounts to the imposition of a heavier penalty,” he said.The tougher regime took shape during Italy’s bloody campaign against Mafia organizations whose members can remain loyal behind bars. Sicily’s Cosa Nostra murdered anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone in a highway bombing in May 1992. Lawmakers tightened Section 4-bis that June; the Mafia killed Falcone’s colleague Paolo Borsellino the following month.Prisoners convicted of certain crimes then lost access to parole, prison leave and alternatives to detention unless they helped authorities. Silence effectively became proof of continuing danger.Teresa Travaglia Cicirello, a criminal law scholar at the University of Messina, saw two layers of unfairness.She said one expectation was that Italy would not apply a harsher rule retroactively; the other was the chance to eventually seek conditional release.Europe’s human rights judges rejected the automatic link between silence and danger in 2019. Italy’s Constitutional Court followed, prompting lawmakers to overhaul the law in 2022.Noncooperating prisoners may now seek release if they show they no longer have ties to organized crime. Good behavior and rehabilitation are not enough. They also generally must serve 30 years before applying for parole, four years longer than other lifers.The longer wait won no blanket approval. Italian judges must account for credits like pretrial detention and determine whether each prisoner can become eligible within 25 years. Otherwise, the promise of release may come too late to satisfy the ban on inhuman treatment.Sara Mastrapasqua, a criminal procedure law researcher at the University of Milan, called the decision both an invitation and a warning to Italian judges. “The effectiveness of the long-recognized ‘right to hope’ for noncooperating life prisoners will depend not only on the removal of the former absolute bar, but also on the concrete and convention-compliant application of the new requirements,” she said. She added there is doubt about how meaningful that hope would be in practice.Antigone, an Italian prison monitoring and prisoners’ rights group that intervened in the proceedings, said the chamber adopted almost all its arguments. President Patrizio Gonnella and Juan Patrone, who drafted its brief, expressed “deep satisfaction with a decision that reaffirms the cornerstone principles of the rule of law and aims to eliminate life imprisonment without the prospect of release.”The violations ended once the men gained access to individual review. Three had not shown the new rules still denied them a chance of release. An Italian judge restored the fourth man’s parole eligibility in May 2022 but eventually denied his application. The men will not walk free because of Thursday’s decision.The Italian government did not respond to a request for comment.Either side has three months to seek referral to the Grand Chamber. Without that, the judgment becomes final and Italy has three months to pay each man 2,400 euros (about $2,800) for nonfinancial harm, along with legal costs in two cases.Courthouse News reporter Eunseo Hong is based in the Netherlands.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads