‘Grande Oriente d’Italia prevails in court’

    

The Grand Orient of Italy has won its court case against the government of that nation—for now—according to a ruling handed down last Thursday by the European Court of Human Rights that judged police searches and seizures of private documents were illegal and not “necessary in a democratic society.”

The Masonic Grand Orient sued Italy after several lodges were raided and had property, including membership lists, confiscated in 2017 as part of a government investigation of suspected links between Freemasonry and the Mafia. The confusing “P2” scandal was decades ago, and this progress helps erase its shadow.

The ECHR press release concerning this December 19 judgment says:

The European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The case concerned a search of a Masonic association’s premises ordered in the context of a parliamentary inquiry into the Mafia. Paper and digital documents, in particular a list of names and personal data of more than 6,000 members of the association, were seized during the search.

The Court found that there had been a lack of evidence or a reasonable suspicion of involvement in the matter being investigated which would have been sufficient to justify such a wide-ranging and indeterminate measure. Nor had the shortcomings in the search order been offset by sufficient counterbalancing guarantees, for example by an independent and impartial review. Indeed, as the system in Italy currently stands, Parliament has exclusive jurisdiction to rule on the validity of its decisions.

The Court concluded that such a significant interference with the applicant association’s rights, involving the authorities examining and retaining a wide range of documents, including confidential information, had not been “in accordance with the law.” Nor had it been “necessary in a democratic society.”

The European Court of Human Rights was established by the Council of Europe in 1959 to address violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.

The court’s findings of facts include:

The applicant is a Masonic association registered under Italian law, Grande Oriente d’Italia. It was founded in 1805 and groups together several lodges.

In 2013 the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry on the phenomenon of mafias and other criminal associations, including foreign ones (Commissione parlamentare d’inchiesta sul fenomeno delle mafie e sulle altre associazioni criminali anche straniere) was set up. It was mandated, among other things, to conduct an inquiry into relations between the Mafia and Freemasonry because of revelations emerging from various criminal proceedings.

On several occasions in 2016 the parliamentary commission of inquiry asked Dr. Bisi, the Grand Master of the applicant association, to provide a list of its lodges’ members. He repeatedly refused, citing confidentiality. He observed that the request was “a fishing expedition” as it neither mentioned ongoing investigations, nor any specific crimes allegedly committed by members of the association. He again refused to disclose names when summoned as a witness in January 2017.

The parliamentary commission eventually, in March 2017, ordered a search of the applicant association’s premises. The search aimed at obtaining a list of anyone who belonged or had belonged to a Masonic lodge of Calabria or Sicily starting from 1990, with their rank and role, as well as information about all the lodges of Calabria and Sicily which had been dissolved or suspended from 1990 onwards, including the names of all their members and their personal files, any investigations carried out and decisions taken.

The applicant association’s premises, including its archives, the library, and the personal residence of the Grand Master, and several computers were searched. It resulted in the seizure of numerous paper and digital documents, including lists of approximately 6,000 persons registered with the applicant association, as well as hard disks, flash drives and computers.

The applicant association unsuccessfully challenged the search and seizure. The parliamentary commission made no ruling on a request to reconsider the search order under its own procedures, while the prosecuting authorities dismissed an application for a judicial review by the Constitutional Court of a conflict of jurisdiction between the powers of the State, and discontinued the investigation into a criminal complaint lodged by the applicant association.

The Grand Orient’s travails might not be over, however, as this court’s ruling is not necessarily final. For ninety days after December 19, “any party may request the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the Court,” where a five-judge panel would decide if this case needs another look. If it rules further examination is required, the panel eventually would issue the final judgment. But if such a request is refused, this current ruling will stand, and will be sent to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for execution. 

Congratulazioni, fratelli!

     

‘The Times (London): Mafia’s enthusiastic participation in Freemasonry’

     
Freemasons in the United States, and probably the rest of the English-speaking Masonic world also, have an enormous blind spot when it comes to the doings of lodges and grand lodges around the world, and how those entities are perceived by the local public. Not the fake stuff; those usually are too secretive to give up any kind of accounting of their activities. I’m talking about established Freemasonry—the bodies that have stood the test of time, and that might enjoy relations with your grand lodges.

The following is Copyright © The Times, December 27, 2017.

Mafia join Italy’s freemasons

to ‘do deals’ with judiciary

Strong links between Italy’s secretive freemasons and the mafia have been exposed by police raids, with 193 crime bosses found to be members of lodges in Calabria and Sicily.

The investigation has confirmed long-standing accusations by magistrates and mob turncoats that freemason lodges in southern Italy are often venues for secret deals with corrupt judges, politicians and business owners.

The mafia’s enthusiastic participation in freemasonry “has led some to believe that the two have become one and the same,” according to a report this month from an anti-mafia parliamentary commission. Masons were “acquiescent” and “tolerant” of the takeover, it added.

The raids were ordered after the heads of Italy’s four main freemasonry orders refused to hand over their membership lists. “It was impossible to get them to collaborate,” said Davide Mattiello, a member of the commission. “Mobsters are joining the masons to meet people who hold power. We need to know how aware of this the masons are.”

The commission’s call for masons to make their secret membership lists public was contested by Stefano Bisi, grand master of the Grande Oriente d’Italia, the biggest order in southern Italy. “The order is ready to defend its sacrosanct right to existence and to maintain the privacy of its members,” he said.

The synergy is reputedly most intense in two towns in western Sicily, Castelvetrano and Trapani, where masons have allegedly helped the mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro to stay on the run for 24 years. Mob-masonry ties are also strong in Calabria, where the local mafia sends members of its top tier committee to do business at lodge meetings, the commission said. In Locri, a Calabrian town notorious for its ties to organized crime, 18 out of 75 members of a local lodge were linked to the mafia.

The report said that the mafia felt at home in the masonry because the organizations shared a passion for keeping secrets and holding ritual ceremonies.

National elections are to be held in March and after that a new anti-mafia parliamentary commission will be appointed. “We only checked in Sicily and Calabria. I hope the next commission will check lodges throughout Italy, because mob infiltration is likely to be a national problem,” said Mr. Mattiello.