The preliminary hearing in Milan involving Minister Daniela Santanchè , along with four other co-defendants—including her partner Dimitri Kunz and two companies from the Visibilia group —in the investigation into aggravated fraud against the National Institute of Social Security (INPS) has been suspended. The decision was made by preliminary hearing judge Tiziana Gueli, who ordered the proceedings to be frozen at least until February 20 , pending the Constitutional Court's ruling on the jurisdictional dispute raised by the Senate regarding the admissibility of certain investigative documents. The Constitutional Court's decision may vary, with a decision expected within eight months to a year.

The issue was raised by the FdI senator's lawyers, Salvatore Pino and Nicolò Pelanda , while the prosecutors opposed it. The February 20 date currently set by the preliminary hearing judge for the continuation of the proceedings is, however, only provisional to verify the status of the jurisdictional dispute pending before the Constitutional Court, i.e., whether the appeal has actually been filed with the Constitutional Court following the Senate vote, whether the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office, a party to the case, has appeared, and, if so, whether a decision has already been reached.

This is difficult, given that the timeframe for these rulings varies from 7-8 months to a year. The move by Santanchè's lawyers has therefore led to a months-long freeze on the proceedings , which prosecutors Marina Gravina and Luigi Luzi had opposed. Already at the July 9 hearing, Santanchè's defense, along with lawyers Pino and Pelanda, had raised the issue of the inadmissibility of a series of recordings of private conversations between the senator and Eugenio Moschini, former director of Pc Professionale , and of emails in which she was copied. The inadmissibility of the proceedings was due to the defense 's failure to request Parliament's authorization to proceed.

On September 24, the Senate approved the proposal to file a jurisdictional dispute with the Milan Prosecutor's Office regarding those documents before the Constitutional Court. The prosecutors filed a brief to respond to the defense's argument regarding their inadmissibility, which they consider unfounded because the documents are not wiretaps ordered by the Prosecutor's Office, but rather conversations recorded by former employees and emails filed by them. These should be treated as documents, without requiring authorization to proceed. The Prosecutor's Office also opposed the request to suspend the proceedings, because the jurisdictional dispute was not raised by the judicial authorities, as in the "Open case," but by the Senate. And when it was raised not by the judiciary but by Parliament, as in the "State-Mafia negotiations" affair, there was no halt.

(Unioneonline)

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