It started, in the absolute silence of an attempted censorship by Italian press. But such a legal action withstands the silence of the press. Because this is the legal action with which the citizens of the Free Territory of Trieste are taking their own State back, after decades of Italy simulating its own sovereignty over it.

And so, yesterday, June 21st, 2017, the office of the Free Trieste Movement, to present the first intervention in lawsuit No. 1757/17 (LINK) opened, before the Civil Court of Trieste, by the I.P.R. F.T.T. (International Provisional Representative of the Free Territory of Trieste) to ascertain the legitimacy of all taxes established and collected in Trieste in the name, on behalf, and in the budgets of the Italian State, requesting also the suspension of forced recoveries as a precautionary measure, held a press conference attended by lots of citizens.

This lawsuit is just too important, it’s in the air. During the press conference, the people are very interested. There is no space to host them all, the line continues to the very square. This is an epoch-marking action, everybody knowns that. In the lawsuit, the first hearing to be held before the Court of Trieste on November 27th, 2017, the defendants are the Italian Government, its Ministry of Economy and Finances, and its Fiscal Agencies (Revenues, State Property, Customs, and Monopolies), and the INPS (Italian National Institute of Social Insurance).

It is the first time that it happens, the very first time that the Italian Government must answer before Court of its defaults in the provisional administration of the present-day Free Territory of Trieste.

Because as explained by the I.P.R. F.T.T. during the presentation of its lawsuit, the legal action depends on the fact that in Trieste the Italian Government does not exercise the sovereignty of the Italian State, rather, it exercises the sovereignty of the present-day Free Territory of Trieste, the temporary civil administration of which is sub-entrusted to it by the Governments of the United States of America and of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, on behalf of the United Nations.

This is why, in Trieste, the Italian Government can only collect the taxes of the administered Free Territory, not those of the Italian State, and it must collect them in the separate budged for the FTT’s own administration, as correctly done by the previous British-US administering Government.

The Free Trieste Movement (FTM) has opened the question of taxation in Trieste as early as in 2012, requesting the Italian Government to restore the correct, separate fiscal regime of the Free Territory of Trieste.

Thousands have already joined the actions of the Movement. After putting the Italian Government in default (2013, LINK), the FTM has launched the first campaign of fiscal liberation with reasons (2015, LINK), with the very first refusal to pay undue Italian taxes.

It is exactly the failures of the Italian Government to respond, and its tollerante for the Italian simulation of sovereignty (including on fiscal matters) over the Free Territory of Trieste that leads the FTM to join the legal action, making it a class action to respond to the urgent necessities of citizens and enterprises of the Free Territory of Trieste and of other States, that by joining the legal action can now request the suspension of enforced recoveries that depend on the failure to pay the taxes whose legitimacy is questioned in this legal action.

As stated by the I.P.R. F.T.T.: “…it is not legitimate, nor it is tolerable, that the Italian Government forces the excessive taxes and the public debt of the Italian State on the people and on the enterprises of the Free Territory of Trieste it administers, violating also the rights of other States and their enterprises over the international Free Port of Trieste. The present-day Free Territory of Trieste is not a property of Italy, nor it is one of its colonies, rather, it is an independent State and international Free Port under the protection of the United Nations Security Council, and entrusted, since 1947, to the temporary administration of the Governments of the United States and of the United Kingdom, and sub-entrusted by them to the temporary civil administration of the Italian Government and to the military defense of the NATO. The citizens and the enterprises of the Free Territory of Trieste and the operators of the international Free Port operators do therefore have the right and duty to pay to the administering Government only the taxes of their own State, a duty that cannot be separated from the right to elect freely their own representatives: no taxation without representation.”

The day ends with the first, 100 adhesions to the lawsuit: the class action for the fiscal liberation of the Free Territory of Trieste has begun.

Translated from blog “Ambiente e Legalità” – “Environment and Legality” by Roberto Giurastante