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Giulia Schiff outside the Air Force. The expert: “Let’s not blame hazing”

Giulia Schiff will not be reinstated in the Air Force. This was decided by the Council of State, which, like the TAR, did not accept the appeal of the 21-year-old from Mira, in the province of Venice, who had been expelled from the Air Force Academy after having reported that she had undergone a kind of “initiation rite “.

In January 2018, Schiff had won the competition for ten complementary officers of the Air Force and was placed fourth out of two thousand. Having entered the Academy of Pozzuoli, she carried out an internship at the Flight School of Latina. The “initiation rite” would have been completed on 7 April, when Giulia Schiff passed the test and obtained the flight license.

The former student of the Academy, through her lawyer Massimiliano Strampelli, asked for a compensation for damages “not less than 70,000 euros”. On November 5th, in Latina, the trial will take place on the case. According to the military prosecutor, eight sergeants have offended “prestige, honor and dignity” of Giulia Schiff by using “violence” and “causing multiple bruises”. “With wooden punches they inflicted violent blows on her backside”, claims the prosecution, “and then they hit her head with the wing of an airplane on static display placed near a swimming pool where, finally, the ‘they threw’.

But the supreme body of administrative justice found it the expulsion “direct consequence of the insufficient vote in military aptitude and professional “.

We talked to the lawyer about it Michela Scafetta of Rome, one of the very few lawyers working in military courts.

What do you say about the decision of the State Council?
«I believe this is a very important sentence, which clarifies the matter. The Council of State reiterates that the only reason why Giulia Schiff was expelled concerns the lack of military and professional aptitude. Schiff was not the victim of hazing, but more simply was not fit for military life. She was expelled because she did not possess military and professional aptitude, she could not fly a war plane, a military aircraft ».

How is the vote in military aptitude attributed? @ «The vote in military and professional aptitude is assigned to pilots in consideration of multiple factors, first of all the suitability for military life. This is an essential requirement, the evaluation of which is carried out on the basis of multiple factors “.

There will still be the trial for the eight sergeants. @ «Unfortunately, the criminal trial against the eight drivers will take place. The sentence of the Council of State closes the affair on the administrative level, but does not produce effects on the penal level. Therefore, despite the sentence having clarified the matter, the eight pilots will be forced to face the criminal trial. This does not mean that “military attitude” and “hazing” have been considered as two parallel tracks that never meet; on the contrary, it is precisely the military attitude that the interested party, even if he does not admit his lack, decides to hide behind presumed hazing acts, exactly like the fox that does not reach grapes ».

Are hazing episodes frequent? @ «I don’t think we talk about hazing. As a lawyer specializing in military law, I can assure you that I have never encountered episodes of hazing in the military world. One can speak of hazing only in the case in which an inferior suffers acts of violence on the part of his superiors. Today, hazing in the armed forces does not exist: it is a phenomenon that is now outdated. Often it hides us behind the hazing when we do not admit its own qualities or shortcomings ».

Did the fact that Giulia Schiff is a woman penalize you?
«Personally, I think it is a mistake to think that this girl was penalized because she was a woman: we must not forget that her classmates have all obtained the pilot’s license and one of them finds herself involved, as a defendant, in the criminal trial. We have great female pilots in our armed force. And let’s not forget where Samantha Cristoforetti arrived ».

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