On 10 March 2017, during a meeting of the Camera dei Deputati (Chamber of Deputies, 757th Meeting, XVII Legislature), Mr. Renato Brunetta, a member of the Italian Parliament, posed an interpellation to the Sottosegretario di Stato per la Giustizia (Undersecretary of State for Justice), Mr. Gennaro Migliore, regarding the right of defense before the Roman Rota^[1] in trials aimed at obtaining a declaration of nullity of marriage. In particular, Mr. Brunetta drew the Government’s attention to the fact that the Decano del Tribunale della Rota Romana (Dean of the Ecclesiastical Court), through a decree issued in December 2015, was preventing the parties to such trials from appointing their own defenders by claiming that prerogative for himself. The right of defense is enshrined in Article 6 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR), to which the Holy See is not a party. The ECHR, however, is binding upon Italy, for which the same right is also a fundamental principle at the constitutional level.^[2]

Continue reading →