VITTORIO BACHELET
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A victim of the Red Brigades, in the Years of Lead
Vittorio Bachelet was born in Rome on 20 February 1926 into a Turin family of French origins.
Having won the chair in 1962, he covered the teaching of administrative law in the Faculty of Law of the University of Trieste; in 1968 he was called to Rome to teach administration science at the Pro Deo university and then in 1974 in the political science faculty of the state university where he first taught public economic law and then administrative law.
From the testimonies of his students, we know that Professor Bachelet was a person who combined a great sensitivity to the rigor of the juridical method, who possessed a great culture and, above all, a great overview which, on the part of the students, in those years, it was seen as an added value. Furthermore, one could count on his continuous and constant presence since he practically never missed any lessons. Professor Bachelet did not leave any of his students "on the street" because he had the ability to value the best and, at the same time, to ensure that everyone could graduate, even the less gifted.
Member of the Council of the laity, of the Committee for the family and vice-president of the Italian Commission for Justice and Peace, he became city councilor in Rome on the Christian Democrat list in 1976. A few months later he was designated a member of the Superior Council of the Judiciary by the Parliament in a joint session, an organ of which he was elected vice president.
He held this position until 12 February 1980, the day on which, while conversing with his assistant Rosy Bindi, he was assassinated by an armed nucleus of the Red Brigades, on the mezzanine of the staircase leading to the lecture halls of the political science faculty of Sapienza, shot with seven 32 Winchester caliber bullets; the shooters were first Anna Laura Braghetti and then Bruno Seghetti.
Sandro Pertini, at that time head of state and president of the CSM, had to say, a few hours after the assassination, that with that murder the armed struggle in Italy had reached its highest point of aggression against the state: "This today it is the most serious crime that has been committed in Italy because the Moro crime had a political character, while today's is directed against the institutions; because they wanted to hit the top of the judiciary, the top of the fundamental pillar of democracy".
InShot_20230501_121449857_0_COMPRESSED.mp4The Red Brigades did not choose their targets at random, their victims. In 1978 they killed Aldo Moro, who had written the Constitution and, not even two years later, they killed Bachelet, who had put his legal knowledge and studies at the service of the institutions in order to implement that same Constitution. The work of Bachelet and his studies has always been aimed, with great juridical rigor but with his heart and mind always open, to the real problems of the country. With the murder of Moro first and then of Bachelet, the interruption of a process of completion of the democratic life of every person is favored, which perhaps still needs to be recovered today.
There is not a single victim of the Red Brigades who cannot be placed among the great reformers, among those who worked to modernize democracy and to implement the Constitutional Charter, among those who wanted collaboration between the different powers of the State and who managed to reconcile Parliament and the Judi.
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