Free Trieste

The report of the UN General Secretariat of 23 October 2015: the Free Territory of Trieste exists under the Treaty of Peace of 1947 and Resolution 16(1947) of the Security Council, and has the right to its own independent judicial system.

On 23 October 2015 the UN confirmed the Free Territory of Trieste, its international Free Port, and of the special trusteeship mandate over them.

Indeed a good turn in Free Trieste’s long stand for legality and of the rule of law. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon confirmed Trieste’s independence.

An independence that local Italian authorities violate, as they simulate Italian sovereignty over the Free Territory. And they do so in breach of the very Italian laws on the subject.

I am standing against such violations since 2011, including before Court. Here, I challenge the simulation of Italian sovereignty in matters of jurisdiction and conflict of interest.

Indeed, Italian magistrates have no authority over the people of any other State, as are Trieste’s citizens. Unless, of course, they exercise the Italian Government’s special trusteeship mandate and comply with the Free Territory’s own laws.

Our State needs a proper judiciary. Again, the Free Territory has the right to its own magistrates. Without interferences from any other State. It already has its own Courts. Yet, the local representatives of the Italian Government have long questioned (and denied) that in the Italian State’s name.

But again, claiming Italian sovereignty over Trieste is against Italian laws. Italy recognizes the Free Territory since 1947.

That is an obligation under international law. It ranks higher than than any Italian domestic law. Even in relations between the administering Italian Government and administered Trieste.

Questioning the local magistrate before Court claiming my rights of citizen of the Free Territory was the only legal action that could shake the local administrative authorities. I did it many times since the fateful 14 December 2011, when I presented the first exception about the lack of Italian jurisdiction over Trieste.

Whenever I rejected the judges who rejected my plea to be judged before the competent Court of the Free Territory of Trieste, I received punitive sanctions and fees.

I questioned the legitimacy of Italian elections, seeking the annulment before the Regional Administrative Court. Once again the Court answered with sanctions and labeling me and my lawsuit as “subversive”.

In the past 4 years, I collected about EUR 35,000 in sanctions and legal expenses. All because I stood for the recognition of the rights of all people of the Free Territory of Trieste.

This blog of mine is a chronicles of those legal proceedings. It is the day-by-day story of 4 years of legal struggle for the Free Territory of Trieste.

A story made also of betrayals: some people exploited our cause, only to turn it in a slogan and run in the illegitimate Italian elections.

However, the many ordinances, judgments, decisions, issued because of my exceptions of jurisdiction are now one of the main evidences of the repeated violation of the trusteeship mandate over the Free Territory of Trieste, entrusted to the Italian Government in 1954.

Included the summoning of illegitimate Italian elections in the administered Free Territory of Trieste.

Recently, I came across a judge’s commentary to my documentation arguing for Trieste’s own judiciary.

It is a legitimate request based on the 1947 Italian Peace Treaty, on UNSCR 16(1947), and on the 1954 Memorandum of Understanding regarding the Free Territory of Trieste.

Well, that magistrate dismissed those treaties as “outdated” claiming that they are “too old”. Ultimately, he labeled as “imaginative” my exception of jurisdiction grounded in those very international treaties.

Yet, those treaties are the foundation of the rules-based international order. And they all recognize the Free Territory of Trieste. As does the UN’s document S/2015/809.

Translated from blog “Environment and Legality” by Roberto Giurastante

Image: one of the newest illegitimate ordinances (23 December 2015) of the Italian judges settled in the Court of Trieste as a response to the exception of jurisdiction. The judge considers that “Treaty of Peace”, Resolution 16(1947) of the Security Council and the Memorandum of Understanding of London are topped by the bilateral Treaty of Osimo, which is not even considered by the United Nations.