The publication of the Anti-Corruption Authority’s report on the book Mafia State cannot be treated as just another cycle of political confrontation. Nor as a communication battle between those who feel vindicated and those who feel targeted. Nor as an opportunity to raise the issue of the resignation of the leadership of the Legal Service. Once an independent authority records findings, indications or issues requiring further investigation, the next step can be neither selective nor superficial. It must be institutional, clear and fully transparent.
The first step is the full and immediate submission of the report, together with all annexes and supporting material, to the Legal Service. Not in fragments, not with delays that cast shadows, but in a way that allows for a substantive evaluation. From that point on, the crucial question is not only whether possible criminal responsibilities will be examined. It is who will examine them and under what guarantees of independence.
In cases of such political and institutional weight, suspicion is not addressed with assurances. It is addressed with procedures that leave no room for doubt. For this reason, the appointment of independent criminal investigators should be seriously considered and, if the need for criminal prosecution arises, an independent prosecutor. This is particularly necessary when former state officials, political figures or institutions that may have had a role in the decisions in question are involved.
At the same time, the principle of the presumption of innocence must be protected. The report is not a judicial decision. It neither convicts nor definitively acquits. It does, however, open a path of scrutiny. And this scrutiny must go all the way to the end, without political interventions, without institutional alibis and without selective reading of the findings.
Society is not asking for spectacle. It is asking for answers. If there are responsibilities, they must be attributed. If there are none, the conclusion must be convincingly substantiated. The worst-case scenario would be for the report to be lost in a labyrinth of procedures, delays and shifting of responsibility. After its publication, the matter no longer belongs to the realm of impressions. It belongs to the institutions. And now is the moment for them to prove that they can function.
