Guarantee is the noble idea that the state should protect everyone’s rights – even of those who seem indefensible. In practice, it means that no one is guilty until proven otherwise, for everyone the prerogatives of a regular and fair trial are valid and that justice – independent of political power – can never be executed. It is one of those civil achievements that serve just when we are easier for us to forget them.
Let’s try to test it, this guarantee, in the case of Ilaria Salis, accused of having participated, on February 11, 2023, in the beating of a Naziskin in Budapest – five days of prognosis – during a demonstration against the neonazians, escaped after months of detention to a process in which he had even appeared in the chains, thanks to the election to the European Parliament in the ranks of the Green alliance, 170 mjla preferences. Stasburg, with a single waste vote, has just confirmed immunity.
And here begins the dance of hypocrisy. The parties of the center -right – PPE, Patriots, Ecr and sovereigns – asked for the revocation of immunity. They did it, ironically, in the name of guaranteeism. They argue: at the time of the facts, Salis was not yet appointed, therefore it must be tried. Right. But where? And above all: by whom?
Because guaranteeism is not a word to mention in the rallies, but a method to be respected in the courts. And the courts of Viktor Orbán are not exactly a temple of independence. The sentence against Ilaria Salis, in Budapest, was already written before the process began. An exemplary sentence – 25 years in prison – requested by a justice bent for political power, ready to exhibit his prisoner in the chains in front of the cameras, as in the time of the Farce processes of Slánský.
A ruling – in the event of revocation of immunity – made even more inevitable because Orban would have considered it as a judicial repair of the political “outrage” of the subtraction of a bill to the Hungarian judges, who often and willingly do not wear the toga but the shirt of the sovereign premier.
Here then is the question: is this the “guarantee” that want Forza Italia and Lega? What delivers a European town to a regime that uses justice as a club? Maybe not, or at least not for everyone. It is no coincidence that several francs of the PPEs have sprung up among the PPE. Because confirming the immunity to Salis was not only a defense of the rights of a person, but an act of accusation against the Hungarian judicial system.
There are those who claim that, without the secret vote, the result would have been different. Perhaps. But the secret vote is also an old invention of guarantees: the Romans introduced it with the Lex gabinia tabellariain 139 before Christ, precisely to protect the freedom of those who voted on issues that touched the dignity of people. Today, the ideal would be to process Ilaria Salis “by legitimate suspicion” in a country where justice is not a weapon of government: in Italy, France, Germany. Because yes, for Salis a judge in Berlin can be there. In Budapest, no.
And that would be the true triumph of guarantees: not a favor to a bill, but a signal of civilization against those who exchange the law for a chain.
