32
GUZZARDI v. ITALY JUDGMENT
2. The compatibility of the deprivation of liberty found in the present
case with paragraph 1 of Article 5 (art. 5-1)
96. It remains to be determined whether the situation was one of those,
exhaustively listed in Article 5 par. 1 (art. 5-1) of the Convention (see the
Winterwerp judgment of 24 October 1979, Series A no. 33, p. 16, par. 37),
in which the Contracting States reserve the right to arrest or detain
individuals.
(a) Sub-paragraph (e) of Article 5 par. 1 (art. 5-1-e) (pleaded by the
Government)
97. The Government relied, in the alternative, on sub-paragraph (e) of
Article 5 par. 1 (art. 5-1-e), maintaining that mafiosi like the applicant were
"vagrants" and "something else besides" (see paragraph 8 of the memorial
of December 1979 and the oral pleadings of 29 January 1980). In paragraph
1 of section 1, the 1956 Act refers to "idlers and habitual vagrants who are
fit for work", a phrase clarified by the Constitutional Court in its judgment
no. 23 of 23 March 1964. In the Government’s opinion, the imposition on a
"vagrant" of preventive measures restricting, or even depriving him of, his
liberty was justified, under the Convention and Italian law, not so much by
his lack of a fixed abode as by the absence of any apparent occupational
activity ("attività lavorativa palese") and, hence, the impossibility of
identifying the source of his means of subsistence. The existence of this
danger factor, the Government continued, was recognised by the Milan
Regional Court in its decision of 30 January 1975 (see paragraph 12 above);
in addition and above all, that Court took notice of the far more serious risk
stemming from the applicant’s links with mafia associations which engaged
in kidnapping with a view to extracting ransoms. According to the
Government, provision could not be made in an international instrument for
the typically Italian phenomenon of the mafia, yet it would be an absurd
conclusion to regard Article 5 par. 1 (e) (art. 5-1-e) as allowing vagrants but
not presumed mafiosi to be deprived of their liberty.
98. The Court concurs with the Commission’s contrary view (see
paragraph 104 of the report and the oral pleadings of 29 January 1980).
There was no reference to paragraph 1 of section 1 of the 1956 Act in
either the report of 23 November 1974 of the Milan Chief of Police or the
State prosecutor’s application of 14 January 1975 or the Regional Court’s
decision of 30 January 1975 (see paragraph 12 above) or the Court of
Appeal’s judgment of 12 March 1975. These authorities relied on the 1956
Act solely in combination with the 1965 Act which concerns individuals
whom there are strong reasons to suspect of belonging to mafia-type
associations (see paragraph 52 above). What is more, they in no way
described or depicted Mr. Guzzardi as a vagrant. Admittedly, they noted, in
passing, that there were serious doubts as to whether he really worked as a
mason as he claimed, but they laid much greater stress on his record, his