Vatileaks: Here's How the " Holy" Trial Works

By Alessandro Speciale
Vatican Insider
September 27, 2012

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage/the-vatican/detail/articolo/vatileaks-18461/

Vatican justice

Two days from the trial of former papal butler, Paolo Gabriele, experts explain the Vatican's criminal justice system in a briefing

The trial of Benedict XVI's former butler begins Saturday. This may be an unprecedented case, but thanks to the Vatican's rather lenient penal code – which copies Italy's liberal penal code of 1913. Before that, it copied the notorious Rocco code introduced by the Fascist regime – Paolo Gabriele risks quite a mild sentence.

"Between 6 months and 3 years" but "if aggravating circumstances are added to this, it could rise to 4 years," Professor Giovanni Giacobbe, Promoter of Justice (i.e. Public Prosecutor) in the Court of Appeal of the Vatican City State, the second of three levels in the justice system of the world's smallest State. Today Giacobbe held a briefing with journalists to explain the Vatican trial procedure.

The main difference with Italy's current criminal justice system is that it is the judge – in this case it will be the group of three judges led by Justice Giuseppe Dalla Torre del tempio di Sanguinetto, rector of Rome's LUMSA University - and not the prosecution and defence who conduct the debate. He will interrogate the accused (Gabriele and Claudio Sciarpelletti, a Secretariat of State computer technician, accused of aiding and abetting a crime, which entails a one year prison sentence) upon the request of the parties present.

Similarly, the Vatican criminal justice system does not follow the Anglo-Saxon model, in which evidence only comes to light during the hearing, through cross-examination of the defence and the texts. However, the trial which will take place Saturday in the small Vatican City courtroom could simply admit the findings of the formal preliminary investigation that has taken place over the past months, as evidence, including all testimonies collected. Existing or new witnesses will only be called to give evidence at the parties' request and if judges think it is necessary.

During the briefing, the Vatican's spokesman, Federico Lombardi, confirmed that the Pope could pardon his former butler at any time during the trial. But Professor Giacobbe stressed that "once the trial begins, the Holy Father should wait until the end of the trial, even though he is not obliged to do so."

The butler's confession of guilt will not be enough to sentence him in the Vatican trial which opens Saturday. "A confession, accompanied by circumstances that corroborate this – Professor Giacobbe said – make the prosecution's job easier, however, his confession alone is not enough to convict him." Indeed, in this case, "the sentence could easily be contested by the defence on the grounds that it is not substantiated by evidence."

It is also not known whether the court could ask for the document produced by the Commission of Cardinals and delivered to the Pope in recent weeks, as evidence. It could, however, accept it without any problems if the Pope himself decides to produce said document. Vatican justice cannot issue a punishment for the leaked confidential documents published in Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi's book.