Tar and museum directors: overcome divisions to work towards the future

I have just finished reading, in Corriere della Sera, an interview with Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the only one of the six directors affected by the Tar’s ruling to save himself from the annulment of the appointment, due to a formal flaw in the appeal. An interview that ends with an appeal of sorts: “evaluate us for what we do and, at the end of the term, decide whether or not to renew our trust.” An exceedingly sensible request, not least because Zuchtriegel spoke in general terms. Not very valuable seemed to me, on the contrary, comments on the same tenor coming, however, from those who, in a certain way, actually linked the Tar’s ruling to an evaluation on merit: I am thinking, in particular, of that of Giuliano Volpe, who wondered whether “the evaluation should be based on quality and merit and entrusted to an international commission of specialists, as happens all over the world, or should be conducted with the formalisms of a lawyer,” in an article explicitly entitled “Let scholars, visitors and citizens do the evaluation. Not the Tar!”

It is necessary to clarify a fundamentally important point: the Latium Tar made no assessment. It has merely performed the tasks to which it is entrusted: adjudicating an appeal against an administrative act, pronouncing a judgment. This is an operation that does not presuppose any trial on the merits and does not enter the realm of content: it is a simple matter of form. Indeed, Judgments 6170 and 6171 ruled that the director selection notice included formal flaws such that the annulment of the appointments that resulted from that notice was appropriate. One can then reason about the timing with which the two judgments came, since the two appeals were filed one on January 27, 2016 and the other on November 6, 2015, and I do not think there is anyone who disagrees that the timing of justice is extremely slow and the sector needs reform more than ever. For the rest, I find it rather idle to comment on the ruling, since rulings are not to be commented on, especially if one improvises oneself as an expert in administrative law when one is not: and too many have dressed in these shoes in recent days. Let us worry, if anything, about having to rely on a bureaucratic apparatus that would not have been able, according to the Tar, to write a notice of competition and carry it out in accordance with the regulations in force: and probably this notice (and the clumsy haste with which it was written) is one of the many offspring of that culture of speed at all costs, of doing something by force, of necessarily having to produce instant results that represents one of the greatest evils of politics today.

The Palazzo dei Musei in Modena, which houses the Galleria Estense, one of the museums affected by the Tar rulings. Photo: Windows on Art

Again, let us worry about those who have seized the ball to exhume the asphyxiating, futile, anachronistic and inconclusive controversy over the nationality of directors, as if science and culture establish boundaries between nations. Let us worry about the unedifying spectacle offered, on the one hand, by those who jubilantly welcomed the Tar’s ruling to lash out at their political opponents and, on the other, by those who launched themselves with a good deal of arrogance against a body of administrative jurisdiction by wishing for immediate reform intentions (and the resentment of the magistrates seems more than justified). Let us worry about the fact that, as on every occasion, the usual, trite refrain of the two irreconcilable parties who, even after the publication of a ruling (and thus of a measure that, especially in this case, had little to do with politics), continue to hurl often specious accusations at each other. Above all: let us worry about the fact that few have spent words on the fate of museums. In this sense, one of the most lucid comments came from the director of the Uffizi, Eike Schmidt, who, when interviewed by theHuffington Post, clearly said that “if decisions that give prevalence to small interests prevail over the common good and over state and community interests, if the borders to Europe and to the world were somehow closed, it would really be an own goal, for Italian culture; and also for the economy.”

It is worth pointing out that, above everything, there remains thatpublic interest that should prevail over any petty logic. If the Council of State rules against the Tar’s rulings, at best five museums will have only lost precious time, not least because in some cases the results of the “new management” were very encouraging. If, on the other hand, the Council of State rules in favor of the Tar, it will probably be necessary to review all appointments and thus overturn the structure of Italy’s major museums. In essence, the two judgments of the Tar are likely to take us back two years, and the effects of the possible annulment of the appointments could be decidedly unpleasant: museums will run the serious danger of being without their directors for a long period of time, and the foreseeable stalemate, during which it is to be expected that only ordinary administration activities will be carried out by “substitutes” appointed ad interim, will result in lack of planning, projects destined to come to a halt, great uncertainty about the future. Italy’s leading museums certainly cannot afford such a situation: it is therefore necessary for all parties to overcome divisions and work together to anticipate events and to begin to ask themselves what might happen in the immediate future and how to emerge in the brightest and least painful way from the conditions that might be created after the Council of State makes its ruling.

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