Court of Auditors, green light for reform from the Senate

Association of Magistrates: "Dark page, reform steps backwards in the fight against waste"

From today, the association underlines, "in the presence of serious negligence, the damage caused to public finances will be compensable only within the maximum limit of 30% of the damage ascertained. The remaining part will not be recovered and will remain the responsibility of the community. Further strong concerns are raised by the introduction of mechanisms for automatic exemption from liability, linked to the silence of the Court of Auditors in the context of checks on legitimacy or opinions. In this way, the absence of an explicit ruling from the accounting judiciary risks turning into an automatic justification, bending these functions to logics of exclusion of responsibility rather than improvement of services". The reform, concludes the Association, "it negatively affects the principles of legality, responsibility and good administration, enshrined in the Constitution, and raises a central issue of fairness: public resources belong to everyone and their protection requires effective and credible forms of responsibility. Greater efficiency of the administration is not achieved by reducing the role of the accounting judiciary, but by enhancing the independent and impartial oversight to guarantee the correct use of public money".

Mantovano then defends the measure from those who point out that there will be fewer controls on politics. "Anyone who commits acts with intent that have accounting significance is liable 100%, or rather with the expected increases – explains Mantovano -. Therefore there is no coverage for fraud or similar crimes for those who cause damage through negligence, there is the provision of a sentence of up to two years of their remuneration as a public employee and I believe that for a public employee to pay for two years, to remain for two years without salary is not such a light thing”. ”Then it’s a question of deciding whether to be hypocritical or not, because we have been accustomed to stratospheric accounting checks, the only limit of which was that they were never completed except in small parts. This path identified is a path of reasonableness and that is, it allows, with a sanction which, I repeat, is not light, to certainly determine a punitive response from the legal system within the confines of reality, that is, the obtaining of what that conduct has determined". "On the 30% I reiterate the need to get out of hypocrisy, because before we were below 10% in revenue compared to the established" he says in reference to compensation for state damage. "If it reaches 30% it is undoubtedly an additional advantage for the community and a less oppressive attitude for those who have not committed these behaviors following a malicious activity, but because they are confused by different jurisprudential orientations or by not well interpreted rules.".

Foti: It is a reform that opens a breach against the ‘fear of signature’which has influenced too many administrators and public officials in the exercise of their functions. The principle is simple and fair: the State must monitor, not paralyze

In short, the usual principle as for abuse of office “there are few proven crimes, so let’s cancel the crime”… I don’t understand why they don’t think the same way with the revenue agency: there are few taxes recovered, I would say that let’s eliminate the revenue agency, so we also cancel the fear of making a mistake in a declaration, as Foti says.