The posture is institutional, the nature moderate. Of the "industrious silences" he has made his own way of intervening in the most heated moments of politics that his second seven-year term has brought him as a gift. Sergio Mattarella is increasingly breaking the mold he himself wanted to base his mandate on. He did it - at the end of February - with the decisive warning to the Minister of the Interior Matteo Piantedosi ("never use truncheons on children") after the police charges against the demonstrators in Pisa. He replied at the beginning of March to point out that the signature on the laws that he promulgates does not necessarily bring with it their agreement. Then, again, speaking on the Pioltello affair by praising the "precious work" of the teachers, at the center of a media (and political) storm for the choice to close the school for the end of Ramadan.
For further information Agenzia ANSA Mattarella calls Roberto Salis: 'I am close to you' - News - Ansa.it 'Disparity in treatment strikes us'. The father: 'He will be interested' (ANSA)
Little more than a month, therefore, in which the head of state, motu proprio, chose to call everyone to "extra responsibility" as he had the opportunity to say to the penitentiary police force - praised for the difficult task - but also called due to the excessive number of suicides in prison.
THE CALL TO THE GOVERNMENT
- Evidently tired of the blows that were increasingly hitting the Quirinale, both from the right (including the government) and from the left, on March 5th Mattarella was forced to make a pointed repetition of constitutional law, the rough summary of which was: enough pull me by the jacket, there's the Charter to explain everything. 'Fortunately I am a president and I am not a sovereign' who, as in the times of the Albertine Statute, signed laws only if he liked them. 'In Italy today there is a Republic, a very clear division of powers and it no longer works like that. The head of state has the duty to promulgate laws even if he doesn't like them or doesn't agree with them. A Mattarella who therefore dedicates the heart of the message to redefining his own role which seems stretched to suit the parties and often used instrumentally.
THE SHOCK ON THE POLICE
- The images of the boys hit by the agents in Pisa on 24 February shocked Mattarella quite a bit and, with an irregular move, he called the Minister of the Interior to point out to him, "finding agreement", that "the The authority of the police is not measured by truncheons but by the ability to ensure security while protecting, at the same time, the freedom to express opinions publicly".
"With boys - the harshest phrase - truncheons express failure."
THE ALARM ABOUT PRISONS -
At a time when politics was chasing the record numbers of suicides among prisoners in prison (one every 60 hours), transforming them into a new battleground, Mattarella addressed the issue head-on during a meeting at the Quirinale with the Penitentiary Police - who thanked them for their efforts and "sacrifices" - but who also called for an "surplus of responsibility" given the extent of the phenomenon.
THE PIOLTELLO CASE
- "I received and read your letter carefully and, in thanking you, I would like to tell you that I greatly appreciated it, just as - beyond the single episode, which was actually of modest importance - I appreciate the work that the body teacher and the institute bodies carry out a precious and particularly demanding task". Few words, but unexpected, those that the president writes to the vice-principal of the Iqbal Masih of Pioltello, Maria Rendani, who had addressed himself to him inviting him to visit the institute.
SALIS
- A phone call, also an irregular one, to Ilaria Salis' father turns the Colle's spotlight on the Italian teacher who has been detained for 13 months in Hungary. An initiative which - despite the envisaged prerogatives "which are not extensive on an operational level and pass through the government" - sees Mattarella promising a personal interest in the matter after the new refusal of house arrest.
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