Raffaele Cantone, Attorney General in Perugia, former President of ANAC, speaking in Naples at the ASMEL Forum “Fear of signature or anxiety of results” focused on the theme of “defensive bureaucracy” that increasingly characterizes public officials conditioned by the “fear of signature”: “the theme of “defensive bureaucracy” has become topical in the last ten years along the lines of what has already happened in the Anglo-Saxon world in the context of “defensive healthcare”.
Just as in the healthcare sector doctors are inclined to request additional checks and tests, sometimes even useless, to protect themselves from possible legal cases, in the same way public officials are led to burden the procedure for fear of personal criminal and accounting responsibilities to which they may be called. The solution, however, is not to eliminate checks or broaden the scope of discretion, but rather to invest in legal certainty and specialist training, aspects on which ASMEL has long been committed to the forefront”.
The former ANAC president did not fail to launch a dig at the Legislator and, in particular, the current Government and the one in office at the time of COVID, which must be blamed for the first dismantling of the crime of abuse of office, on which Minister Nordio also spoke. On this point Cantone was lapidary: “I don't think this is the right path to follow!".
Cantone did not fail to make a small mea culpa, thinking back to the not always serene relationships with the Municipalities that characterized his time at the Anti-Corruption Office: “I confess that the role of President of ANAC allowed me to overcome some prejudices I had towards the Public Administration, accustomed as I was to seeing exclusively the pathologies linked to the commission of crimes against the PA itself. In that experience I learned to know a complex and articulated world in which many possibilities live in addition, of course, to the well-known problems”.
Finally, regarding Italy's candidacy to host the European Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA), Cantone believes this solution is deeply desirable as "in terms of anti-money laundering, ours is the only country at the forefront. Now in all contexts we no longer export the mafia but the anti-mafia, with a series of criteria that concern precisely anti-money laundering and that work much better than in other places. I also believe that there are symbolic reasons to justify the presence of AMLA right in Italy, just think of the fundamental role that the Palermo Convention had, strongly desired also by Giovanni Falcone, it is from there that the theme of the fight against the mafia has become a global theme”.
At the opening of the FORUM, the general secretary of ASMEL Francesco Pinto, dwelling on the role assumed by the Association over the years, underlined the peculiarity of the associative model promoted by ASMEL, which has now become the second association to which over 50% of Italian municipalities belong, "which aims to protect Members by putting them in a Network for the joint management of municipal services, in contrast with the forced merger encouraged/advocated by ANCI“Only in this way, continues Pinto, can we obtain the critical mass necessary for adequate economies of scale.
A choice rewarded by the Members also demonstrated by the constant growth of membership, despite the strong counteraction to which the Association has been subjected so far by bodies interested in protecting their own vested interests. Today with 4265 member Municipalities we have become a fully legitimized reality that intends to make its voice heard at government tables, starting with the ongoing reform of the Consolidated Law on Local Authorities”.
Article published on 1 December 2023 - 17:26
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