Paola Di Nicola: «Because I want to be called the judge»

THEthe book The judge – A woman in the judiciary mark a new one stage in the career of its author, the magistrate Paola Di Nicola Travaglini. In his career he has chaired the Special Court for the Waste Emergency in Campania. And has acted as trial judge and then as magistrate, judge of preliminary investigations, in criminal justice. From 2020 and until appointment as counselor in the Court of Cassation was part of Commission on femicide and all forms of gender-based violence of the Senate as a legal advisor.

Language, sexist prejudices, inside and outside the courts, and above all the identity of women in the judiciary are at the heart of the new edition of her book. And this interview.

Women and the judiciary: the models

When and why did you enter the judiciary?
“I did there‘examination peer enter the judiciary a few hours before the Capaci massacreon May 23, 1992. Frances Morvillothe wife of Giovanni Falcone, was returning from Rome, from the written tests of “my” competition where she was commissioner, when she was blown up with her husband in Capacisays Paola Di Nicola. “This episode falls within the global framework that prompted me to choose the legal profession. My father was a magistrate, he dealt with terrorism and went around with the escort. As a teenager I sought a non-violent, unarmed solution to social conflict. To the imbalance of rights. And I found it by enrolling in law».

What model of judge inspired you?
“My role model have been my father and his colleagues. Giovanni Falcone and Giancarlo Caselli. Examples of sobriety, humanity, morality. Models that cannot be scratched, in front of which gender belonging recedes» explains the judge. «At the university and in the exercise of the profession one learns that the moment one puts on the toga one’s identity disappears. Men or women it doesn’t matter, like any other connotation. One is a judge, a neutral term that absorbs everything. AND I was inspired by this model for a long time».

Then what happened?
“I’ve come to terms with reality. That model was frustrating, it required me to remove myself. mit prevented me from risking the richness of my being a woman. I understood when I was confronted with my being a woman in a striking way. A Camorra defendant in the waste trafficking trial in Campania, whom I was interrogating, looked at me and weighed me up as a woman, as a woman’s body. And then I understood that the toga, the institution did not recognize me. AND it didn’t even shield me from the fact that I was a judged body, peered. towards whom one had the effrontery to be provocative, to make compliments». I could not do The judge: i am a womanI had to find my voice, my role model, as a woman».

How to become “the judge”

How did she become the judge?
«I started studying the history of women in the judiciary. And there I understood everything. No one had told me abouthesitation and let’s even say the hostility of some of the politicians who wrote the Constitution the entry of women into the judiciary. Those hesitations had led the first eight magistrates to enter a courtroom only on April 5, 1965, twenty years after the end of the war, I understand that in a few years it is not possible to overthrow a model of awe that has lasted for millennia. For millennia, women had been denied access to public space.,The the right to speak could not be fully exercised without having understood and overcome the reasons for that imposed silence».

Now there are more magistrates than males

“It’s a goal the fact that from a numerical point of view there is parity is important (indeed a slight prevalence of women). But if women enter the judiciary without having gender awareness, they will not be able to see, as I have not seen for years. that the institution considers you guests. And then as a guest, suggests that you comply with the house rules. To the male interpretation of the administration of justice» continues his reasoning the component of the Court of Cassation. «See recognized the equality of women in the judiciary means that the organization of work changesdeeply. The fact that women are absent for maternity leave cannot be considered “problems” caused by the important presence of women in the judiciary or caring for elderly parents. There pregnancy is considered a big individual problem. As in any other area. Or again you can’t keep women from the top rungs of the career ladder» continues the judge, Paola Di NIcola Travaglini concludes her reasoning thus: «The massive presence of women in the judiciary, as in other professions, I am thinking of medicine, has a deflagrating effect on the relationship between work and private life. We are acting as if nothing has changed.”

What changes in court that she is a woman?
«I try to understand if for people that I am listening to or that I am interrogating the fact that I am a woman is a source of discomfort. I can recognize my interlocutor, if he recognizes me. And then, when it comes to crimes of gender-based violence, I’m interested in understanding whether gender affiliation affects what the defendant or even the victim is telling me,” explains the magistrate. «I’ll give you an example: if a defendant of domestic violence declares “I hit her. because I was jealous”, I try to frame the situation with a few more questions. “Do you take care of the housework? Do you have separate accounts or does she control her wife’s money?” I try to understand if a discriminatory model is at work behind their answers».

What reactions do your questions provoke?
«Often both idefendant and victim are displaced. Because this interpretation breaks a consolidated vision of the world, which many women share».

Law and discrimination

If she is the victim of sex, what does she do?
“It happens for example for the witness to answer to the male president instead of me that I question him. At first I didn’t react. Now I officially react to this discrimination, which is a form of injustice. It’s heavy for me too. But these infractions of the rules I have them put in writing in the minutes».

Because he titled the book The judge?

“Long I wondered how I hadn’t noticed that the fact of using the masculine as if it were a neutral term was discriminatory. I was inside a model that I didn’t question and this effectively made me a body foreign to the judiciary. The use of the feminine is not secondary, as many still maintain. Nobody forced it on me, it’s a silent acceptance of the fact that you’re in there as a woman, with your prerogatives you don’t exist. The presumed neutrality is a trick to deny presence and speech. For millennia, women have been denied the right to interpret the law. This inferiority has been internalized within the acceptance of the masculine» concludes the magistrate.

Women judges: “What are you afraid of?”
When the Constituent assembly discussed these issues, one of the representatives present, Maria Terracini asked “what are you afraid of?” who opposed. To this question The judge di Paola di Nicola Travaglini gives a contemporary answerwith the story of his human and professional story.

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