Could Eluana’s dream be the last?

According to his father, Beppino Englaro, Eluana was a very determined person. One of those strong girls that always have an answer for everything. She witnessed the coma legacy happened to one of her friends, long ago. A boy that was forced, by the doctors, to live a non-life. Apparently, she said “if something like that happens to me, I’d like to die”.

For some sort of poetic justice, something like that has – in fact - happened to her.

Fifteen years ago, in a town named Lecco – in Lombardy – she was hospitalized following a car accident, which had caused a cranial trauma. There was also a fracture at the level of her cervical vertebras, that would have bound her on a arm-chair forever. It doesn’t matter, though, because Eluana has been sleeping until nowadays. A coma, according to a medical definition, is “a state of deep unarousable unconsciousness”, practically speaking: a comatose person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to pain or light, does not have sleep-wake cycles, and does not take voluntary actions.

By the time she was hospitalized, the doctors decided to give her a chance. In order to save her from a certain death, they therefore administered medicines to Eluana and intubated her, because they said: “hope is always the last to die”. In spite of all these treatments, she couldn’t wake up, so they moved her to another ward. It was 1992, Eluana is now 37 year-old.

At the moment she is staying – like a plant would – at the hospital and the doctors there are living her life for her. She opens and closes her eyes like a real person, following the rhythm of day. However, she can’t see anything. Her lips tremble, her limbs are stretched. There is a straw passing from her nose that brings food into her stomach, an enema is her personal bathroom. Nurses wash her body with sponges everyday and help her sit on a chair, from time to time. They have to pay attention that she does not fall on the ground. They also move her body in bed so to avoid bedsores.

According to the Italian law, anyway, she can’t be considered dead because the accident only damaged her celebral cortex, instead of the entire brain. As remarked by Marco Malagutti, the British Medical Association and the American Academy of Neurology agree consider twelve months a period long enough to determine whether the patient can wake up from this kind of coma, or not. After that, there is no hope left.

Her father is legally responsible for the life of Eluana, however, despite all the advices coming from various medical sources that consider the state of this patient “incompatible with basic human dignity”, he can’t give a end on her “non-life” due to some sort of expectation of a miracle. More precisely he could, but he would have to follow a scary path in order to do so: it’s about letting her die by the lack of water and food, in this way it would take her twenty days to pass away. Try to imagine yourself witnessing the living-death of one of your relatives, could anyone cope with that?

Eluana’s one only represents the last case of what they call “therapeutic tenacity”. The lack of a law concerning Biological Testament in Italy has already caused endless pain. A recent verdict has finally ruled that Beppino Englaro – Eluana’s father – has the right to give her death, or perhaps we should call it peace. Although non venom can be injected. A violent polemic has erupted in Italy: someone wants Eluana to die, someone else is ready to feed her with water in case her father will decide to interrupt the medical treatments.

Who should decide whether to stay in a endless coma or leave this world? Who should decide about her own life if not Eluana herself? Italy is in a desperate need of a law on biological testament. Gaetano Quagliariello, a Pdl’s Senator and the President of The Magna Carta Foundation, said that “the power of the sovereign people should claim its own voice on such thorny matter”. We think he’s right.

Andrea Loquenzi Holzer

 

 

Berlusconi’s personal war

Italy is facing once again a internal political power struggle between the judiciary system and the legislative one. No wonder that Silvio Berlusconi is at the centre of attention and, guess what? The governing body of the Italian magistrates is accusing him of trying to avoid a trial.

The CSM (Superior Council of Judiciary) has labeled as “irrational” and anti-constitutional a decree aimed at speeding-up the work of the Italian judiciary system by suspending for one year all trials for crimes committed before mid 2002, except those in which violence , Mafia, serious crimes and workplace accidents are involved.

The decree is clearly intended to make the very slow work of the Italian magistrates a bit faster by allowing the most serious trials to have priority.

Unfortunately, this decree, if approved, is going to have an effect on Berlusconi’s political life as a Prime Minister. The point being David Mills, a English lawyer. Berlusconi is in fact charged of having paid 600.000 dollars to Mr. Mills in 1997 to withhold information that could have been incriminating for Italy’s Prime Minister.

The “Mills affair” was supposed to expire this year, but a Milan based court has ruled out that the case went on at least until 2002. This fact could therefore extend the trial for another two years.

“A President of the Council spending more time in taking care of his trials that the problems of his country is something inadmissible” Said “Il Cavaliere” yesterday, during a meeting. “This decree is necessary. I am going ahead, I can count on citizen’s consensus, the people are with me, if they think they can stop me, they’re wrong”.

With a few simple words the Italian Prime Minister has explained what is going on:

He was elected by a large majority of the voters to be the President of the Council. The judiciary system has always been against him for one simple reason: the Italian constitution was written and approved by communists and the entire school system is left-wing oriented. This means that every single judge who got his degree from a public university is quite probably a leftist or, at least, anti-Berlusconi.

Besides this, consider the fact that the CSM cannot label a decree as anti-constitutional because that power belongs to the Constitutional Court – not only: since the decree is still under approval by the lower house of Parliament, the CSM (like all other judiciary institutions) cannot interfere in this process.

That is why our Head of State (and former communist) Giorgio Napolitano, wrote a letter to the chief of CSM, Nicola Mancino, in which he pointed out that: “ the CSM cannot express opinions about the unconstitutionality of a decree”.

Napolitano also called for a better “distinction of roles, reciprocal respect” and for a better “sense of measure and loyal cooperation”. A former communist defending Berlusconi is already something unusual. However, the Security Decree, once approved will have a positive effect for every citizen, since the worst crimes will have priority.

There is more at stake, though: this power struggle between the judiciary and the legislative branches of the Italian government could affect the future of the country and the one of its citizens.

If we allow the magistrates to decide what is right to do or not ,whenever they want to and regardless of the constitution, than what is the purpose of elections? We could ask the CSM to govern the country.

Andrea Loquenzi Holzer