During the Mani Pulite era, an entire ruling class was swept away by judicial investigations—not even by convictions, which often never came: hardly anyone believed that the accused might actually be innocent.
What seems evident is that, at the time of Mani Pulite, people had great faith in judicial truth, whereas today that trust has largely been broken. The reasons include the continuous contradictions in verdicts, the political alignments of judges—brought to light by the Palamara case—the countless investigations that led nowhere, and the illogical, bizarre, and convoluted nature of many legal proceedings.

In fact, even those who appear to unconditionally support the actions of judges often don’t truly believe in them. They think that the accused (especially Berlusconi and his associates) are guilty of everything; if convicted, the judges are right; if acquitted, it’s due to loopholes or cunning legal tricks—in other words, the verdict doesn’t really matter.

Let me also make one thing clear: we cannot assume that people TODAY are either all corrupt or completely gullible and just swallow everything they’re told. We live in a democracy—people are exposed to all kinds of contradictory information and decide for themselves what to believe.

The real issue is that, for the past 30 years, it’s been impossible to have a serious discussion about the judiciary.
What has happened is that Berlusconi’s unconditional supporters saw the judiciary as the enemy, while those who were unconditionally against him saw it as a force for good.
People don’t even realize that it’s always the judiciary that investigates and also acquits. More importantly, they fail to realize that the issue doesn't concern only Berlusconi but many others as well—just to name a few: Bassolino, Renzi, and those arrested in Gratteri’s investigations.

In the past, there were striking cases like Enzo Tortora or Piccioni, whose career was halted due to the Vilma Montesi trial, which was based on nothing—but those were exceptions. Now, by contrast, it’s a raging river: a relentless cycle of accusations, convictions, and acquittals.
Let’s not forget that someone like Bassolino was investigated 19 times and acquitted 19 times.
In all these cases, I believe the procedures were correctly followed, but justice still failed spectacularly.

For years, some prosecutors investigated Salvini for kidnapping, while others went after sea rescue organizations. No one seriously believed that either Salvini or the rescuers would ever actually go to prison.

Some magistrates say: "We know everything because we read the files; you know nothing, and we can’t even talk to you about it—so you just have to accept what we say."
But it doesn’t work like that. Every discourse—legal, educational, religious—is always validated by a meta-discourse, as they say. A teacher might claim to be the one judging, but then the students judge the teacher. It’s like evaluating magic using magical reasoning: instead, one must show that magic is not effective like science is.

So, when citizens see contradictory rulings, and see people dragged through the mud for years or imprisoned only to be acquitted, they lose trust in the judiciary. Increasingly, many see judges as politicized, egocentric, or ideologically biased.
Judges are meant to interpret the law: the criticism is that this interpretation is not balanced or prudent, but driven by ideological, political, or personal motives.

This view is also based on the fact that, in Italy, it happens far too often that different judges interpret the same facts and the same laws in completely different ways.
When discussing justice in Italy, the issue is not whether magistrates follow procedures or laws—they’re well-trained, experienced professionals, not first-year law students.
The real concern is whether they are using legal procedures for ideological reasons, to gain notoriety, or as a stepping stone into politics.

For example: if only 1 out of 100 abuse-of-office cases ends in conviction, one starts to suspect instrumental use of the legal process. It would be naive to think the other 99 judges simply made mistakes. It becomes clear that both sides are using different ideological options to either acquit or convict.

We must not confuse the world on paper with the real world, as the saying goes—they rarely align, if ever.

In this specific context, judicial truth is not only not "the whole and final truth," but it’s not even equivalent to socio-political truth.
Someone is not truly guilty or innocent just because they are definitively convicted—or acquitted. This is obvious.

Even at the socio-political level, the reality diverges from the judicial version. Even Stalin’s show trials were technically legal, and often even featured confessions—yet no one believes those verdicts today.
The reasoning behind verdicts, therefore, does not have absolute value.

As the ancient Sophists—the first lawyers—already demonstrated, one can always argue everything and its opposite, even that nothing exists.
Today’s lawyers find every possible loophole to support their case: that’s their job.
But it’s precisely the judges' role to distinguish between loopholes and valid arguments.

When there are strange and contradictory verdicts, it means judges, too, have started playing the loophole game—and how they do it matters little.

The Court of Cassation, in particular, may rule that a certain procedure did not comply with the law—but can experienced judges really make gross errors? Certainly not—except in rare cases. The truth is, as the Sophists used to say, you can always argue anything and its opposite. So the Cassation Court formally rules on form, but actually judges the substance—justifying its decision with a procedural point.

One simple example: the Cassation Court ruled that the women known as the olgettine in the famous Berlusconi case should have been questioned as suspects rather than as witnesses, and thus annulled the trial. But can anyone seriously believe that experienced judges made such a mistake? The truth seems clear to me: both sides used a different valid option to either convict or acquit Berlusconi according to their own beliefs.

A similar argument applies to the Constitutional Court, which is supposed to assess the balance of constitutional principles. In practice, it assesses what it believes that balance should be—according to its own opinion or ideology.

Laws are important, but what really matters are the judges who apply them—just as, in education, the best curriculum is useless if the teacher is incompetent or indifferent. Conversely, even without a perfect curriculum, a good teacher can provide a solid education.

Similarly, in the administration of justice, what matters most is the impartiality of judges.