Judges’ unpaid wages cost a billion: a new uncertainty over the budget
Following its defeat in the Council of State, the Ministry of Economy and Finance has raised the increase for 2018–20 from 4.85% to 6.82%, but this will require almost 200 million. The subsequent years are also at stake, and the bill could rise to 1 billion
Key points
There are still four months to go before the budget is finalised, but the agenda is already packed with issues to be resolved. The latest concerns pay rises for magistrates, following successful appeals by the ANM, which challenged the calculation methods used by the Government to date.
The legal battle has come to an end as far as the 2018–2020 three-year period is concerned. Having won their cases at the Regional Administrative Court and the Council of State, the magistrates have once again turned to the administrative courts to compel the Government to grant higher pay rises than those provided for so far. However, in Order 5140/2026, filed in recent days, Palazzo Spada has granted the Government a further extension, requesting that it submit a report by 5 September setting out ‘the procedures and timetable for concluding the adjustment process’. But the order also contains an important piece of news, explaining that the extra ten or so weeks have been granted because Istat has already revised its calculations, raising the increase to be granted for the 2018–2020 three-year period to 6.22 per cent, from the 4.85 per cent originally provided for in the Palazzo Chigi decree of 6 August 2021, the increase to be granted for the 2018–2020 period.
A domino effect
According to government estimates, the new measure will cost just under 200 million, or around 16,000 euros on average per magistrate. These funds will have to be found. And, above all, they are not the only ones. For the course of events already seems set for the 2021–23 period, following the Prime Ministerial Decree of 3 June 2024 – which provided for increases of 6.69 per cent for those years – having already been challenged before the Regional Administrative Court on the very same grounds that led to the annulment of the 2021 decree. And it is difficult to imagine that the situation will change for the period 2024–26, which has yet to be set out in a decree that will have to comply with the guidelines of the Council of State.
There are currently no official figures on the financial implications of this domino effect. However, it is only natural that costs have risen in recent years, for two reasons: the retrospective adjustment carried out three years ago increases the calculation base to which the subsequent increases are applied; and, above all, between 2022 and 2023, soaring inflation and contract renewals are amplifying the impact of the mechanism.
The uncertainty surrounding the extension of the scheme to university lecturers
The chain could therefore cost at least one billion in total: not to mention that the dispute is spreading to university lecturers, who are subject to the same pay adjustment mechanism as magistrates and, although they did not lodge an appeal at the time, in light of the rulings by the Regional Administrative Court and the Council of State, have begun to request a review, under the right of self-redress, of the measures affecting them.
