Should Italy reintroduce the death penalty into the Military Code?
The opinion of a judge and the current geopolitical situation
Recently, I came across a featuring Italian judges Piercamillo Davigo and Gherardo Colombo during a meeting held at a high school in Maglie, Puglia, to present a book they had written. The two became particularly famous to the Italian public for being part of the famous “Clean Hands” pool in the ’90s, a judicial investigation that showed the rooted habit of corruption of the Italian parties characterizing the country’s politics in the so-called “First Republic”, a political and economic system that had lasted for almost five decades from the end of the Second World War to the early ’90s. What intrigued me was the question asked by a student to the magistrates, who asked what they thought of the death penalty. Leaving aside the answer given by Gherardo Colombo, Piercamillo Davigo replied:
The death penalty would require a very complex debate… it’s something you can do without, except in one case, and I find it utopian to have abolished the case originally provided for by our Constitution of military laws of war. Some of you will have seen the film “The Longest Day”, where a paratrooper unit is sent to occupy a bridge that they must hold because the troops will have to pass. The…
