Italians back police law

Press, 14 June 1978, Page 8

Italians back police law

NZPA-Reuter Rome Italy’s voters have rejected an attempt by the small Radical Party to abolish controversial laws on police powers and public financing for political parties.

But the results of a week* end referendum showed only grudging support for the ruling Christian Democrats and the Communist Party, which both campaigned strongly for retaining the two laws.

The law on police powers, Including the right to shoot at suspected criminals, was endorsed by a 3-1 majority, while only 56 per cent of the voters backed the law on State finance for parties. Mr Gianfranco Spadaccia, president of the Radical Party which forced the twin referendum by collecting the necessary 500,000 signatures, claimed success for its initiative.

He said that all the major cities had voted to step financing the parties from taxpayers’ money, to the tune of $5l million a year. That showed that most _ sophisticated urban Italians had little faith in their political leaders, he said. The Christian Democrats and the Communists, who might have expected a more

overwhelming vote for the police powers law in view of the kidnap and murder of the former Prime Minister, Mr Aldo Moro, both hailed the result as a victory. “The great majority of the electorate has shown its backing for a policy of severity and rigour in defence of the democratic order,” said the Communist leader (Mr Enrico Berlinguer).

The Christian Democrat D e p u t y-Secretary (Mr Giovanni Galloni) said: “The majority of Italians have faith in their parties.” More than 80 per cent of Italay’s 41 million eligible voters took part in the referendum.

The Radicals argued that the police law had failed to break the country’s spiralling crime rate and had led to a “general armament” of Italian criminals and the subsequent killing of innocent people, among them many policemen. The pro-referendum campaigners argued that the party financing law, which divides the $5l million between the parties according to their strength in Parliament, only favoured established political organisations and had not stopped politicians from accepting bribes.