Some Italian judges privately admired the mafia as a parallel legal system.

Evidence

Bue the most worrisome nexus is less apparent, though it is seen in the leniency with which some judges treat mafia crimes. Fear and opportunism play only a minor part. Carefully disguised, a quasi-professional admiration permeates some quarters of the judiciary, whose members believe both that the mafia represents a legal system (ordinamento giuridico) in its own right and that its role is complementary rather than opposed to that of the state. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 16

Categorization

• XREF: Judicial leniency as state-side legitimacy conferral—mirrors how the reader’s framework sees third-party enforcers gaining quasi-state standing.
• DEFINE: Introduces ‘ordinamento giuridico,’ the legal-pluralism concept that frames the whole chapter.