Clientilism in Italian public life is now legal and that's official. In a remarkable judgment, a Milan court recently ruled that favouring party loyalists over other candidates for public sector jobs is not a crime. Saturday's - perhaps landmark - judgment absolved 11 politicians from four different parties of the charge of "abuse of office" for having assigned 59 senior jobs in hospitals in the Lombardy region (around Milan) to party associates.
This story first emerged in January 1995 after a reporter from the Milan daily Corriere Della Sera unwittingly stumbled on an intriguing scoop. The reporter had phoned a councillor who happened at that moment to be attending a meeting of party leaders on the city council's ruling junta. Inadvertently, the councillor failed to hang up the phone properly, leaving the reporter to sit in on the party leaders' deliberations all evening.
To the amazement (and no doubt delight) of the reporter, much of the proceedings came across all too clearly: "That one's for me . . . 24 to the Partitio Popolare and 10 to the Lega Lombarda . . ."
Three years ago, in October 1995, the 11 politicians concerned - members of the Partito Popolare (ex-Christian Democrat), the Socialist party, the Northern League and a local leftwing grouping - were indicted to stand trial with a presiding judge stating that "the evidence against them is clear".
The recent judgment, however, absolved all 11 defendants - including the current Foreign Affairs Under-Secretary, Ms Patrizia Toia of the PPI, and the former Lombardy region president, Mr Paolo Arrigoni of the Northern League - because they had accepted no money in exchange for the 59 nominations. Incredibly, however, the judgment went on to admit that the defendants "had used their powers in order to favour their parties rather than to choose the best-qualified candidates in an effort to improve the common good".
So it's official. Whatever you do in public office, ignore the common good and dish out the jobs to party cronies. (Which indeed is precisely how Italy has been governed for much of the post-war period - never mind that Giuseppe cannot tell a band-aid from a heart valve, he's been a loyal party hack and he deserves the job as Hospital Director General. Not surprisingly, in the circumstances, the service provided by many Italian state hospitals leaves much to be desired).
It could well be that Saturday's judgment will be overruled. It is also true that clientilism of this nature (if not on quite this scale) is certainly not unique to Italy. What is breathtaking is that an Italian court should enshrine it as a perfectly legitimate way of going about public affairs.
The court's ruling was based on a 1997 law which stated, in relation to the article of the penal code regarding abuse of office, that favouring party loyalists was no longer a criminal offence on condition that no payments or bribes were involved. That law itself had been introduced by politicians rocked by the number of indictments for abuse of public office, and was sparked off by the 1992 Tangentopoli investigations.
In introducing this legislation, the politicians were, at best, legislating for de facto situations in which political pull (raccomand
azione) rather than the desired professional qualifications determines the allocation of a job. A more disturbing scenario would be that, in an effort to maintain their clientilist fiefdoms, politicians had merely moved the goalposts in the wake of Tangentopoli. So, racco mand azione is a crime, is it? Then, we'll change the rules.
Some commentators have this week suggested that the ruling sharply contradicts one of the central Tangentopoli tenets, namely that clientilism is merely the first step along the road to corruption and dishonesty in public administration.
Perhaps the Milan judgment is just another step along the road to reassessing Tangentopoli. When the investigations first started, they were greeted with widespread approval by Italians, tired of years of dishonest and corrupt public administration, while a key figure such as the investigating magistrate, Mr Antonio Di Pietro, became a national hero.
Six years later, the vested political interests have fought back. Mr Di Pietro was hounded out of the judiciary on a series of trumped up charges that were subsequently dismissed but which, at least in part, had been masterminded by a former defence minister, Mr Cesare Previti, a close associate of the opposition leader, Mr Silvio Berlusconi.
Mr Berlusconi is currently demanding the creation of a parliamentary commission to look into possible irregularities and political bias on the part of the Tangentopoli investigators. (Mr Berlusconi, who has received three convictions for corruption within the ambit of Tangentopoli, has always claimed he is the victim of a political witch-hunt).
Are we looking at the final stages of the long and winding road to some form of amnesty for those involved in stealing public funds for both personal and party political coffers and to the detriment of the common good?
Clientilism is a way of life and therefore legal, so why not kickbacks and extortion too?