The appeal section of the Court of Auditors has condemned Luis Durnwalder, former number of the Province of Bolzano, e Heinrich Erhard, former head of the Provincial Hunting and Fishing Office due to the tax damage caused between 2010 and 2014. The two politicians will have to pay over one million euros as compensation after their decrees authorized the hunt for protected fauna species.
In particular, the resolutions referred to foxes, blackbirds, crows and jays to be taken beyond the allowed period, without forgetting the authorization for the killing of cormorants, badgers, marmots, stone martens and ibex. The two convictions came after the appeal of the Prosecutor of Trentino Alto Adige. Derogations of this type need very specific justifications and in this case there would have been no. The judges ascertained the culls of the various species in the absence of the necessary conditions.
Previously it was the Anti-Vivisection League (LAV) that appealed to the TAR against the provincial decree, an appeal that led to the suspension. Durnwalder spoke of a "political and unjust" sentence, recalling how hunting is the competence of the Province. There will be recourse to Court of Cassation and, in case of confirmation of the sentence, to the European Court of Human Rights.