Pope Francis ‘secret decrees’ undermined defendants’ rights in Cdl. Becciu trial, lawyers say

VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Defense lawyers have told the Vatican appeals tribunal that “secret decrees” issued by Pope Francis unlawfully expanded prosecutorial powers and undermined the fundamental rights of defendants in Cardinal Angelo Becciu’s trial.

On Tuesday, during the resumption of the appeals phase of the Vatican’s so-called trial of the century, defense attorneys for Becciu and eight co-defendants argued before the Vatican City State Tribunal that four confidential decrees signed by Pope Francis in 2019 and 2020 violated basic principles of due process by granting prosecutors extraordinary investigative powers that departed from existing law and were never officially published.

“The failure to publish these provisions risks making the Vatican’s procedural code fascist,” defense lawyer Mario Zanchetti told the tribunal, arguing that the secret decrees would render the entire trial invalid.

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The decrees were confidential orders personally signed by Pope Francis, which gave Vatican prosecutors special powers to investigate and allowed actions that normally wouldn’t be permitted under Vatican law. In particular, the decrees authorized Vatican prosecutors to employ wide-ranging surveillance tools, including wiretaps, and to deviate from established procedural norms without judicial oversight.

Since they are classified as confidential or secret, these decrees were never published, meaning the public and even the defendants didn’t know they existed at the time.

Attorney Luigi Panella described the measures as giving prosecutors a “surreal carte blanche” to investigate. Zanchetti argued that his client, Italian broker Gianluigi Torzi, was directly affected by the decrees. Torzi’s electronic devices were seized, and he was arrested and detained inside Vatican gendarmerie barracks for ten days without formal charges or a warrant issued by a judge.

The defense contends that such actions breached the principle of legality and the right to a fair trial, including the requirement of “equality of arms” between prosecution and defense. Legal experts have said that laws governing criminal investigations must be accessible and knowable in advance, and that secret norms applicable only to one case undermine that requirement.

The judge, Archbishop Alejandro Arellano Cedillo, intervened to ask lawyers to avoid explicitly naming the former Pope during their arguments. “I would ask you to not name Pope Francis,” Arellano said. “We all understand, if you avoid referencing the Holy Father.”

The hearing marked the most direct focus so far on Pope Francis’ personal role in authorizing investigative measures during the early stages of the Vatican’s financial review.

According to Canon law and Vatican legal tradition, Prima Sedes a nemine judicatur – “the first see is accountable to no one” – that is, a reigning Pope is accountable only to God.

While it is theoretically lawful for a Pope, as the absolute sovereign with regard to the positive law of Vatican City, to issue confidential executive decrees, using them to steer a trial in a predetermined direction would violate natural law, which forbids perverting the course of justice.

In a criminal trial, this natural duty means giving each person either the punishment the law requires or declaring their innocence, as the evidence shows. Any attempt to force the outcome would be unjust, because even the Pope is not above natural law, which belongs to divine law.

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The judicial case erupted in 2020, when Pope Francis stripped Cardinal Becciu of the rights connected to the cardinalate after the launch of an investigation into the Secretariat of State’s controversial investment in a London property. Becciu was accused of opaque management of confidential funds, “embezzlement,” and favoritism – allegations he rejected, insisting he had always acted with the approval of his superiors.

Convicted in the first instance in 2023, he is now facing the appeals process, which calls into question both the procedure itself and the way in which Pope Francis exercised his power.