Building reform: technicians in revolt against the new criminal law clampdown

"A provision that profoundly alters the correct balance betweenprofessional duties and public administration responsibilities, attributing to the technician tasks that are beyond his role and operational possibilities". This is how Fondazione Inarcassa, representing architects and engineers, comments on the hypothesis of increasing the responsibilities of technical professionals currently under discussion as part of the reform of the Construction Code.

In the text, in fact, a measure is included that could introduce anew declarative obligation, requiring technical professionals to reconstruct and certify the entire authorisation process of a property, also assuming responsibility for it on a penal level.

Fondazione Inarcassa emphasises that "it is not acceptable to transfer onto professionals the inefficiencies of the Public Administration, which is still suffering from delays in digitalisation, document management, and the accessibility of archives. To expect the technician to make up for such shortcomings and independently certify the completeness of documents produced by third parties means exposing the professional to criminal liability that affects personal freedom and distorts the very nature of technical responsibility'.

For the president of the Foundation, Andrea De Maio, 'it is unrealistic to attribute to the professional the task of guaranteeing, alone, the completeness of administrative acts that are often incomplete or not fully accessible. Such an approach turns the technician into a retroactive guarantor of other people's proceedings, exposing him or her to an entirely disproportionate liability regime'.

Even more serious is "the idea that the deficit of digitisation of public archives can translate into a cost paid, in terms of criminal liability, by the individual professional. It is not just a question of the correct allocation of tasks: the protection of personal freedom is at stake. It is essential to bring the reform back within a balanced and enforceable perimeter, in which responsibility is attributed to those who are actually entitled and capable of control'.