All guilty, no one guilty
Two words hang in the air: 1. CORRUPTION (Corruption in law indicates the conduct of a public official who receives money (called a bribe) or other benefits that are not due to him, often creating economic damage and is a crime: art. 318 of the criminal code – Corruption for the exercise of the function art. 319 criminal code; Corruption for an act contrary to official duties; art. 319 ter cp Corruption in judicial acts; art. 320 cp – Corruption of a person in charge of a public service. www.ildiritto.it
2. CONCUSSION (Extortion is the extortion carried out by a public official through abuse of his office). Ergo The difference between these two crimes lies in the position of the private individual:
- in the case of extortion, the citizen suffers the extortion initiative of the public official. In practice, either he pays or he will suffer the unfair consequences proposed; in corruption, however, citizens and public officials are on the same level, stipulating an agreement that benefits both. This is the case of the owner of a property who, to quickly obtain a building permit, pays the official in charge of the Municipality’s technical office. www.laleggeugualepertutti.it
Why this introduction? For the simple reason that these crimes seem to be commonplace. Reasons? Depending on the context there is always a justification. In our case it could be that of costs of politics sometimes for national needs, sometimes for local needs. Question: when will the bad habit of asking for money in exchange for favors end, perhaps for electoral purposes?
Think back to 358 BC already Lex Poetelia de ambitu was issued to sanction the electoral corruption, Nothing new under the sun? All this chasing of do ut des seems to be like the Phoenix rising from its ashes: Do you remember February 17, 1992? Pandora’s box was opened, but the lid appears to have never been put back on. Today the parties receive a contribution at a national level for each vote they have had, then there is the 2×1000 and finally the liberal donations, deductible up to 30,000, but cannot exceed 100,000 euros.
Here then is an interesting question: how much can you spend on one election campaign for example at European elections? The law sets the maximum spending limit for individual candidates at 52 thousand euros for each electoral constituency to which 0.01 euros must be added for each resident of the constituency. If we consider the North Western constituency which is the largest with over 15 million inhabitants, the spending ceiling for candidates is equal to 210 thousand euros. A threshold approximately 100 thousand euros higher than for aspiring deputies from the South for whom the limit is set at approximately 118 thousand euros.
Well, we all have a bit of knowledge and we don’t even lack common sense, could it become important for each of us to be decently represented in Europe, perhaps without having the laws “written” by lobbies? Do you know how many are registered with the “transparency register”?
Currently 12,400 to be added to another 3,400 representing non-governmental organizations. Just think, there are 705 European Members of Parliament, meaning that for each of our Representatives we have 22.41 “lobbyists”. They will also bring these representations corruption or extortion?
We won’t know until some smart guy gets caught red-handed. To read: “Corruption scandal: the EP wants reforms on transparency and accountability” Corruption scandal: EP wants reforms on transparency and accountability | Current affairs | European Parliament (europa.eu) All innocent until proven guilty, therefore all guilty and no one guilty? A reflection by Hans Horst Skupy (1942-living-writer) “corruption is the supranational currency in force”.
#Corruption #supranational #currency #politics