“The rule of which law? : use of legal language in the rhetoric of the anni di piombo”

The legal, political and civil debate during the anni di piombo is both lively and complex and cannot be accounted for in all of its nuances neither in a single contribution, nor even in a single volume. What is possible instead is to focus on given aspects of the debate so as to provide different perspectives from which to appreciate such complexities. In this contribution, we focus on a ‘certain’ instrumental use of some key legal concepts during the very early stage of the terrorist struggle to highlight how, in the anni di piombo, the legal language is appropriated by all the main actors: the State, the terrorists and the victims themselves. Those three main actors use the legal language in different ways to achieve the same end: they use legal concepts to transform subjective statements into objective, and even moral, truths. In this sense, the use of legal rhetoric can be seen both as the meeting ground and as the ground where a symbolic battle is fought. The way these three actors use legal language reflect in many ways some of the tensions which profoundly divided Italy during the anni di piombo. The entire debate is always tainted by legal rhetoric; the State, is at the same time, created by, and creator of, law; the State cannot exist without the law, and the law cannot exist without the State – whatever form both of those entities take. It is therefore natural that the attack on the State should be perceived as an attack against the law, or the “rule of law”, lo “stato di diritto”. Needless to say, any State, any organisation, would have difficulties recognising as an interlocutor someone who is not playing according to the rules of the game, of its game. And the State, the Italian state in the 70s, heavily relied on “legal” notions, as well as political ones, to justify the response given to those who placed themselves outside its boundaries be those moral or legal. This instrumental use of legal rhetoric is not exclusive to the State: the Brigate Rosse, as well as at least some of their prisoners (Sossi first but also Moro later), also use legal language to reinforce their claims. Those claims however, cannot, by their very definition, be reconciled. The political tension is therefore replayed as well as exemplified in the clash of legal rhetoric. It is for this reason that an investigation as to the way legal rhetoric is appropriated by different actors might be useful, although of course, such an investigation also begs the broader, and unanswerable question, as to whether law can ever be perceived in an apolitical fashion (which of course is not to say that the law cannot be enforced in a non-political fashion). What is obvious, and to a certain extent accepted, is that law plays a predominant role both in the “fight against” the State, and in the fight against “terror”; law plays a predominant part in providing some sort of justification for the actions taken, be those subversive or defensive. Thus law is used to provide some sort of normative justification for a political action, in the attempt to catapult the debate from a “subjective” moral ground to an objectified “legal” ground. In other words, legal rhetoric is used as an instrument to demonstrate and support the rightness of one’s action; to universalise the rightness of one’s action beyond the realm of the political debate which necessarily always stems from a partisan perspective where the result follows only if the premise is accepted. In order to illustrate these points, I will start by analysing the kidnapping of Judge Sossi through his diary, to then turn to the rhetoric used by the terrorists and the State. It is important to stress that Sossi’s diary was written between 1978 and 1979, four years after the kidnapping took place and, not by coincidence, in the aftermath of the Moro case. Thus, Sossi’s account has a “narrative” significance, subjective rather than objective in nature.