There is a precise moment when law breaks: the moment it stops seeking truth and begins to serve collective mood. Not a noble cause, but social pressure. Not a principle, but a prejudice. In that moment, law ceases to be a barrier against arbitrariness and becomes an instrument of violence. That is the moment we return to legal barbarism.
It feels like we’ve gone back to the days when trials were held in the town square. Where the cries of the crowd mattered more than evidence. Where the verdict came before the proceedings even began. Today that square has changed form: it has the polished contours of television studios, the monotone voice of “expert” analysis, the relentless pace of headlines. But the logic remains the same: a culprit is sought, not truth. An enemy is created, not a person heard.
Today, family courts have become places where law is bent, distorted, humiliated. Fathers who have loved, supported, and raised their children are treated as permanent suspects. The presumption of innocence evaporates. Evidence gives way to impression, to the ex officio credibility of the mother. Psychological evaluations replace investigations. “Feelings” become verdicts.
All this happens under the gaze of a public opinion inflated by relentless news, shallow analysis, and oversimplified narratives — where every femicide is portrayed as conclusive proof of “male violence”, with no case distinctions, no contextual examination. It does not matter whether there is any proof of guilt. It does not matter whether the men are peaceful, present, affectionate. It is enough to be a man. And that is sufficient.
This is how, day by day, a new witch hunt is fed. Only now, the witches are no longer innocent women accused of heresy: today, they are fathers erased in the name of supposed protection. We return to the pyres. There are no flames anymore, but there is stigma. There is social exclusion. There is preventive condemnation. There is the impossibility of defending oneself in a system that has already decided who you are. This is what was sought. This is what was wanted. But the plan behind all of this will be addressed in another letter.
In the name of “child protection” — a protection often proclaimed but rarely verified — everything has been erased. Fifteen hundred years of legal development have been swept away, from Justinian’s Corpus Iuris Civilis to the foundational principles of modern democratic constitutions.
The presumption of innocence, cornerstone of criminal law, has been abolished and replaced with a systemic prejudice that views the man as guilty from the outset. The centrality of evidence has been abandoned: today, a suspicion, a one-sided statement, a biased consultancy are enough to justify drastic measures. Constitutional principles have been ignored: the right to defense, procedural fairness, proportionality. Fundamental social rights have been trampled: the right to parenthood, to emotional continuity, to relational dignity.
All this is justified by slogans. Not by verification. By assumptions. Not by checks. Law has ceased to be a criterion: it has become an ideological tool.
Family law was born as an exceptional field, designed to handle sensitive, complex situations. But today the exception has become the system. Family law has turned into an autonomous universe, detached from the principles of legality, proportionality, and legal certainty, where discretion is unlimited and arbitrariness institutionalized.
What was meant to be a protected space has become a lawless one. Every abuse is justified as caution. Every violation as protection. Every exclusion as a precautionary measure.
Around this dysfunctional justice system, a self-referential ecosystem has formed: a dense network of associations, social workers, psychologists, lawyers, institutions, mediators, experts, consultants — all thriving on conflict.
There is no incentive to resolve. Only interest in prolonging. To multiply consultations, supervisions, “protected” meetings, evaluations and reports. Everything becomes a “case”. Everything becomes an “intervention”. Everything generates fees, projects, public funding, judicial appointments.
This is a system that feeds on itself. It is not efficient. It is not fair. But it is stable. A perverse balance maintained by shared interests.
In this system, suffering is no longer a problem to be solved. It is a source of income. The raw material of a pain industry.
This is no longer justice. It is management. It is ideology. It is the administration of suffering.
But the silence is over. The word becomes testimony again. And testimony becomes civil resistance.
Those who have lived this barbarism do not forget. Those who have endured it can no longer remain silent.