Carthusian Monastery of Trisulti, Council of State agrees with MiC and kicks out ultra-right wing

There finally comes the word “end” on the Certosa di Trisulti affair, which pitted the Dignitatis Humanae Institute (DHI) foundation, the school of the American ultra-right close to Steve Bannon, former chief strategist of former President Donald Trump, against the Ministry of Culture (now Ministry of Culture, MiC). The Carthusian Monastery, an important 13th-century monastery in Collepardo (Frosinone, Italy), had been given in concession to DHI, amid protests from the local population, given the extremist demands pursued by the foundation. The concession had been given in 2017, after which in 2019, the MiBAC, under the leadership of Alberto Bonisoli, had recoved the concession noting several irregularities (in short, DHI did not have the requirements to occupy the Charterhouse).

The legal battle went on for two years, until May 27, 2020, with the resounding Lazio Regional Administrative Court ruling that MiBACT’s assessments were illegitimate: the court thus reassigned the Charterhouse to the school. Now the final word has come from Palazzo Spada, with ruling 02207/2021 of March 15. The Council of State, in particular, ruled in favor of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, noting that DHI did not have the requirements to obtain the concession.

“The requirements that had to be met ’on pain of ineligibility’ by associations and foundations” aiming for the concession, the Council of State recalls, “were the following: (a) provision, among the main purposes defined by law or by statute, of carrying out activities for the protection, promotion, enhancement or knowledge of the cultural heritage; (b) documented experience of at least five years in the field of the protection and enhancement of the cultural heritage; (c) documented experience in the management, in the last five years prior to the publication of the notice, of at least one cultural property, public or private; (d) possession of the general requirements under Art. 80 Legislative Decree No. 50 of April 18, 2016 ( ) to contract with the public administration, limited to the legal representative of the entity.” “It seems clear to the college,” the ruling continues, “that the above requirements had to be possessed at the deadline for submitting applications and therefore by January 16, 2017 (the date on which DHI actually submitted its application to participate). This follows both from the wording of the notice and on the basis of a principle immanent in our legal system by virtue of which the requirements for participation in a public selection must be possessed at the time of the expiration of the peremptory deadline set by the notice for the submission of the application to participate, in order not to prejudice the par condicio between candidates for a public selection, which always must assist the conduct of such an administrative procedure.”

Therefore, “taking into account what emerges from a reading of the documentation produced in the files,” the ruling goes on to say, “the College believes that the objections made by the administration to the DHI association have merit, given that they are documentally proven.” What are the requirements that DHI did not have? The lack of association recognition and the absence of cultural promotion activity (and consequently the five-year experience required by the notice).

“By DHI’s own admission,” the ruling reads, “the recognition of the association occurred well after January 16, 2017 (the date of the deadline for the submission of applications), in fact only five months after that date, on June 20, 2017, the Territorial Office of the Government registered the recognition of the association (as it emerges from the certificate from the Prefecture of Rome referred to in the note prot. 220500 of June 21, 2017 paid to the records of the preliminary proceedings carried out by the Ministry and in the present judgment).” Regarding the failure to meet the requirement of carrying out cultural activities, the judgment states, “as of January 16, 2017, Art. 6 of the association’s bylaws listed among its tasks ’the promotion of the Holy Gospel in the public and political world ( ) supporting the Catholic Church with the formation of young people, who have marked vocations to the political mission ( ) the organization of training activities,’ to indicate those closest to the activity that the notice stipulated that participants had to demonstrate that they included in the bylaws as institutional purposes. It was only on March 30, 2017 that the association’s bylaws were supplemented to include the statutory purpose of protection promotion and enhancement of cultural heritage. It seems clear that the three activities indicated in Art. 6 of the association’s bylaws prior to the integrative intervention and reproduced above cannot be considered, if only partially (and therefore insufficiently), included within the scope of the broad and in any case specific activity of promotion and enhancement of cultural heritage, which evidently requires the association to commit itself not sporadically (as is demonstrated by the documentation filed by the association) but constantly in the twofold work of promoting in a widespread manner the sense of culture and knowledge of the existing heritage as well as enhancing it through initiatives that cannot have a territorially circumscribed scope (as is still evident from the documentation filed) but refer to the entire national and international territory.”.

“It follows from the above,” the judge concludes, “how the lack of the above-mentioned requirements required under penalty of exclusion for participation in the selection was amply demonstrated by the proceeding administration, moreover in cross-examination with the association concerned and with a request for additional documentation, which leads to consider adequately carried out the investigation and motivated the decision taken by the administration in self-protection.”

In the photo: the Charterhouse of Trisulti. Ph. Credit

Carthusian Monastery of Trisulti, Council of State agrees with MiC and kicks out ultra-right wing

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