Source: https://www.diritticomparati.it/i-know-its-wrong-but-i-just-cant-do-right-first-impressions-on-judgment-no-238-of-2014-of-the-italian-constitutional/
Timestamp: 2020-06-03 04:30:16
Document Index: 748017972

Matched Legal Cases: ['Art. 3', 'Art. 1', 'Art. 94', 'Art. 3', 'Art. 94', 'Art. 27', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'Art. 12', 'CJEU ']

I know it’s wrong but I just can’t do right. First impressions on judgment no. 238 of 2014 of the Italian Constitutional Court - Diritti Comparati
I know it’s wrong but I just can’t do right. First impressions on judgment no. 238 of 2014 of the Italian Constitutional Court
By Filippo Fontanelli on 28 Ottobre, 2014
– Si c’est une certitude, ce n’est pas un tournant. Le fait d’appartenir à ce moment où s’accomplit un changement d’époque (s’il y en a), s’empare aussi du savoir certain qui voudrait le déterminer, rendant inapproprié la certitude, comme l’incertitude. Nous ne pouvons jamais moins nous contourner qu’en un tel moment : c’est cela d’abord, la force discrète du tournant. [Maurice Blanchot, L’entretien infini, (Paris, Gallimard, 1969)]
Essentially, the SC held that sovereign immunity cannot cover the breach of jus cogens rules – at least in civil courts – regardless of whether the wrongful acts are jure imperii. The Ferrini judgment expressly balanced the rationales of sovereign immunity (the stability of international relations) and of jus cogens norms (the prevention of the most horrendous crimes). The SC afforded primacy to the latter over the former, a finding dictated by considerations of minimum legal civilisation. In addition, the SC accorded special weight to the so-called tort exception, according to which sovereign immunity cannot apply to conduct, giving rise to tort liability, which is committed in the State of the forum.
Ferrini opened the floodgates: plaintiffs started suing Germany in Italian courts on a regular basis. The Italian judges, loyal to their Supreme Court, systematically rejected Germany’s jurisdictional objections and condemned it to compensation.
The reasoning of the ICJ was based mainly on the absence of a new rule of customary law that limited the principle of State immunity from foreign civil jurisdiction for acts jure imperii. Rejecting Italy’s suggestion that an exception might exist, the ICJ upheld the rule. It found that general state practice in support of the territorial tort exception was insufficient to consider it a new rule of custom; in fact, the Italian position was virtually isolated in the international community. Moreover, the ICJ rejected the notion that, merely because the prohibition of international crimes is jus cogens, it should override the principles of immunity. The grant of immunity being independent of the gravity of the wrongful act, it must apply also to breaches of jus cogens. This conclusion entails no normative conflict: whereas the rules on international crimes are substantive, those on immunity are merely procedural. Immunity only prevents the exercise of jurisdiction in certain fora, but it does not displace jurisdiction, nor does it – even less – exempt from criminal or civil responsibility.
Spontaneous implementation by national judges in pending proceedings fell short of fixing the harm to Germany’s immunity caused by previous final judgments. The legislator took the matter into its own figurative hands and passed Law no. 5 of 14 January 2013 (ratifying United Nations Convention on the Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property). Besides transposing the UN Convention into Italian law, the act provided a statutory basis for the judicial implementation of Germany v Italy. Paragraph 1 of Art. 3 requires Italian judges to decline jurisdiction in pending proceedings when the ICJ has ordered Italy to do so. Paragraph 2 introduced grounds for reopening (revocazione) judgments other than those provided for in the Code of Civil Procedure (Artt. 395 and 306). In particular, final judgments can be impugned when they clash with a judgment of the ICJ barring Italy from exercising jurisdiction (even when the ICJ’s ruling comes after the domestic judgment).
The CC set the scene evoking the doctrine of the controlimiti (“counter-limits”) (3.2). Fundamental principles of the constitutional order and inalienable human rights raise a barrier to the entry of contrary supra-national obligations into the Italian system (international customs, EU law obligations, the Lateran Pacts). These values incarnate the constitutional identity of Italy and, as such, cannot be amended not even through a process of constitutional reform (see Artt. 138-139 of the Constitution).
1) The internal law transposing the international customs
Restrictions of the access to justice are only justified to protect another constitutional value, as it is mostly the case in the field of sovereign immunities, which preserve the integrity of international relations. However, the CC held that in the case of immunity for international crimes the absolute sacrifice of the victims’ access to justice is unjustifiable. More precisely, the Italian constitutional order does not contemplate any prevailing public interest that could excuse the restrictions of the rights under Artt. 2 and 24 of the Constitution. This is because, in the case of sovereign immunity, such restriction “must be connected – substantially and not just formally – to the sovereign function of the sovereign State, through the typical exercise of its governmental powers” (3.4). The maintenance of peaceful inter-state relations cannot force onto the Italian constitutional system the breach of fundamental principles and inviolable rights.
Artt. 2 and 24 of the Constitution accept the principle of State immunity from the jurisdiction of the Italian judges to protect the function of governmental powers. Immunity cannot protect also acts that bear no relation with the typical exercise of public powers, are expressly considered and found to be wrongful for breach of inviolable rights [as in the present case] and are, in spite of this, deprived of any judicial remedies[, as was acknowledged by the ICJ itself with respect to Germany’s conduct].
2) The ratification of the UN Charter
The referring judge questioned the constitutionality of Law no. 848 of 1957, Art. 1, which gives full execution to the UN Charter. In her view, this provision allows the operation of Art. 94 of the Charter, which requires compliance with the judgments of the ICJ, and therefore can conflict with Artt. 2 and 24 of the Constitution in circumstances such as those occurred after Germany v. Italy.
3) Art. 3 of Law no. 5 of 2013
1. This judgment is an international wrongful act. The CC expressly endorsed non-compliance with the judgment of the ICJ. Nota bene: the CC did not just take issue with the specific means Italy chose to implement its obligations; the CC made it very clear that as long as there is a Constitution in Italy no Italian authority will be allowed to comply with Germany v. Italy at the expense of the victims. In doing so, the CC consciously exposed Italy to international responsibility for violation of customary law and Art. 94 of the UN Charter. The motivation behind this strategy is irrelevant at the international level. Art. 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (which codifies a general principle applicable also to customs) states that a State “may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform” international obligations. To be very clear, this judgment is sufficient reason for Germany to seise the ICJ again, and the judgment would be very easy to draft: Italy has confessed a breach, and has promised to breach again, forever. Alternatively, Germany is entitled to take appropriate action, including through counter-measures (see ILC Articles on State Responsibility, Chapter II. Countermeasures cannot be taken during binding dispute settlement proceedings). Moreover, Germany would be entitled to ignore the civil judgments of Italian courts (I quote from the Frankfurter Allgemaine: “Embassy in Rome: We need to talk. But we give nothing”). Failure to pay voluntarily would necessarily lead to enforcement proceedings, and one must wonder how many more assets like Villa Vigoni are available on the Italian territory. If plaintiffs were faced with a scarcity of attachable German assets, they would certainly know that enforcement abroad is not an option (the Italian Constitution has no extra-territorial effects, as it were). If I were them, I would try to push the CC a step further – who knows? – arguing that another inveterate custom must now must yield necessarily to the untouchable core of constitutional principles: the non-attachability of diplomatic premises or assets. It would be interesting to see the proportionality test at work in that scenario: access to justice without an effective remedy is useless, the CC said. Would it be acceptable under the Constitution to leave the victims without an actually effective remedy, or would it be preferable to make another dent in the old armour of sovereign immunities? Admittedly, this solution would encroach on a proper exercise of governmental power, not just the dubious public function to commit war crimes; but everything is weighable after all (e.g., how much compensation is sufficient?), if substantive and procedural principles are put in the same proportionality fruit bowl, with apples and oranges.
2. The reference to Kadi has some bootstrapping quality to it. At the time of Kadi I,several commentators agreed that the CJEU had no real alternative. Had the CJEU refused to annul the Regulation to honour its international obligations, the risk was that the constitutional tribunals of the EU Member States would have stepped in to invalidate the implementing measures at the domestic level. According to this plausible reading, the CJEU’s judgment meant also to pre-empt the possible reaction of national constitutional tribunals, and to some extent was arguably motivated by this possibility. In the CC’s decision, we see a reversal: the Kadi I decision is cited as authoritative example of inter-system disobedience, to support the notion that deliberate non-compliance with international law is sometimes appropriate. The convincingness of this precedent is doubtful, insofar as it was premised precisely on the prospect of judgments like the CC’s one. In other words, the CC is trying to say that others support its course of action, but it is really pointing to itself as the ultimate authority.
3. This judgment is unlikely to have an impact on international custom. Here I am venturing into the unknown, so feel free to know better. The ideal rule championed by the CC does already exist, in international law. Namely, the territorial tort exception to sovereign immunity is codified in Art. 12 of the UN Convention of 2004. If other States want to espouse the position of the CC, it is sufficient for them to ratify the Convention, and this ratification would hardly reinforce the CC’s legitimate hope that a custom could arise. It is now relatively clear that the territorial tort exception is a matter of lex specialis left to treaty instruments. The ICJ excluded that a custom is even forming, and both the Tribunal of Florence and the CC accepted this conclusion as impeccable. In this perspective, the civil disobedience reflected in the CC’s judgment is of a peculiar kind, because it acknowledges its own irrelevance against the injustice it purports to contrast. The CC essentially gave up trying to change the state of injustice registered at the international level, and limited itself to preserve the domestic order from the effects of this injustice. This protective strategy, however, is by definition unfit to change a comma of the wider problem. Make no mistake: I am not claiming that the CC will fail in its attempt at changing international law; I recognise that the CC has clearly excluded to have such a plan, so a success/failure assessment is beyond the point. I am just considering that its decision is very unlikely to produce a positive externality in this direction – whether intentional or not. The nostalgic recount of the heroic years when Italian judges forged the doctrine of restricted immunity suggests, perhaps, an inappropriate parallel.
4. Je sais, mais quand même…Italy discharges international obligations through the collective conduct of its public agents, whose different constitutional functions are irrelevant at the international level: Italy is one subject for virtually all international law purposes. Given a rule x (respect of sovereign immunity from foreign civil jurisdiction for acts jure imperii), Italy has had the following record: compliance (pre-Ferrini); breach (Ferrini and following); doubt (suspension during the ICJ proceedings); compliance (Albers); breach (CC). The decision of the CC appears to come full circle back to Ferrini. There is a change, though: the reasoning of Ferrini is domesticated – literally. What is considered intolerable is not so much the breach of international jus cogens, but the breach of domestic jus cogens. National jus cogens, as such, is both irrelevant and inaccessible to the outside international world: it is in a black-box. The CC can shape domestic law in perfect autonomy, as shaman and guarantor of its own Constitution. In this sense, it is tempting to read Italy’s erratic behaviour according the psychoanalytic dynamics of belief – disavowal – magical thinking that runs through fetishism. At first, Italy believed (or proclaimed to believe) in the actual existence of an exception to State immunity. Then, it experienced a factual refutation of its belief, which forced it to a conscious disavowal. However, the belief (croyance) survived, yet not about a reality, but about a second-level intangible credence which no empirical experience can disprove because it is based on self-sustaining convictions (indeed, CC and Tribunal of Florence are repeatedly stressing that they know that there is no custom to rely on – “Je sais bien”). Resort to the “untouchable core” of the Constitution speaks to the faith of the audience, in a call for identitarian exceptionalism (“mais quand-même…”):
5. What about Jones v UK? If the previous remark came across a bit vain, here is a hands-on example to conclude. The CC claims that international law in force today imposes an intolerable obligation to States, i.e., the obligation to deprive their citizens of judicial remedies in domestic courts in civil proceedings relating to international crimes, for no justifiable reason. Because the first half of the claim is factual, only the second half invites scrutiny: if truly there is no justifiable reason for this unfortunate twist of custom, all States of the international community should be concerned. After all, Italy is but one of the legion countries in which access to justice is a fundamental human right. Incidentally, Italy is party to the Council of Europe (CoE) and, by extension, of the European Convention on Human Rights. The 47 CoE members have entrusted the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) with the task to ensure that a uniform standard of human rights protection applies across all States. Because they are subject to the ECtHR’s jurisdiction, CoE members typically interpret their internal regime on fundamental rights in light of – and in line with – the pronouncements of the Strasbourg Court. In Italy, the duty of “Conventional interpretation” of domestic norms in light of the ECtHR’s case lawis clearly established (see again CC’s judgments no. 348 and 349 of 2007), and unquestionably applies to the interpretation of the Constitution too.
– First, the plain outcome of Jones v. UK did not stop the Tribunal of Florence from referring a question to the CC, nor did it convince the CC that the limitation of the access to court was acceptable after all. This is not so surprising if you bought the psychoanalytical amateurish parallel (I am trying to contribute to the Lacan-isation of international legal studies): once disavowal has already taken place, further reality-checks and wake-up calls are useless.
– Second, it is clear that Italy has gone down a spiral of isolation from the rest of the international community. Initially, Italy’s challenge to customary law was somewhat premised on shared values of justice, such as the rejection of impunity and respect for jus cogens. In the CC’s judgment, instead, not only has the fight with custom subsided, but the CC enforced a solipsistic reading of access to justice which is not even validated by the ECtHR. To be true, Italy can afford higher protection than required by the Convention, but it is somewhat striking that Italy has built this open mini-war (waged against the UN, the ICJ, Germany and international law at large) on an extraordinarily severe proportionality assessment that was plainly disavowed by the ECtHR. At least the CJEU in Kadi could claim to be between a rock (the UN obligations) and a hard-place (the ECtHR’s reading of fair trial and access to justice): there was no option but to favour one at the expense of the other. The CC has no ECtHR’s support to stand on; the hard place is one that Italy built for itself out of thin air. With this CC’s decision, and limitedly to this particular case and its proximate consequences, Italy is – literally – on its own against all.