Justice

Civil lawsuits, Pnrr not enough: time and pending cases grow

The report submitted to Parliament takes into account proceedings and offices that fall outside the target agreed with the EU

by Valentina Maglione

28 February 2026

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4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Despite the Pnrr investments in justice, the number of pending civil cases is increasing and the time it takes to settle them is also growing, with the exception of the courts of appeal and the Supreme Court. This is revealed by data from the Ministry of Justice, contained in the report on the administration of justice for 2025, filed in Parliament in recent weeks.

This analysis provides an overall picture of the health of civil justice. In fact, it also takes into account proceedings and offices that do not fall under the target set by the Pnrr, and due to expire on 30 June next year, of a 40% reduction in time (calculated using the disposition time method, which estimates the foreseeable duration) compared to 2019. In particular, the Pnrr target refers only to contentious proceedings in court, court of appeal and cassation. The ministerial report, however, broadens the view to non-contentious proceedings and other judicial offices: juvenile courts and justice of the peace offices.

What emerges is a situation of distress, especially for those offices and proceedings that are not under strict observation for the NRP.

Pending proceedings

The worst off appear to be the offices of the justice of the peace, where pending cases on 30 September 2025 (the date of the monitoring) were close to one million (there were 999,706, to be exact): 1.4% more than the pending cases in 2024 and up by 23.8% compared to 2022, i.e. precisely the time frame in which the measures to achieve the NRP targets came into effect.

The surge in the number of cases pending before the justice of the peace has driven the total increase in civil cases, which amounted to 2.9 million as at 30 September 2025, up 1.9% compared to 2022 and up 0.8% compared to 2024. The increase in the period 2022-2025 also affected the juvenile court (+15.5%), where, however, in the last two years the figures have been falling compared to the peak in 2023. And also at the ordinary court, the number of ongoing proceedings is slightly increasing compared to 2024 (+1.8%), but decreasing compared to 2022 (-5.6%).

By contrast, the reduction in civil cases is evident in the Court of Appeal (-20.5% on 30 September 2025 compared to 2022 and -5.5% compared to 2024) and in the Supreme Court (-22.9% in the period 2022-2025 and -7.5% compared to 2024).

The subjects

Looking at the type of proceedings, different trends in pending cases emerge when considering bankruptcy proceedings and executions (which do not enter into the calculation of the NRP target of cutting time) separately from other proceedings.

Bankruptcy proceedings and executions in fact recorded almost 360,000 pending cases as at 30 September 2025: a figure that has fallen by 2.5% compared to 2022 but has risen by 3.2% in the last year.

Pending cases in other proceedings were more than 2.5 million as at 30 September 2025, an increase of 2.5% compared to 2022 but only 0.4% in the final year 2024.

Among the subjects of litigation, in the ordinary courts, litigation in disputes relating to international protection and civil service grew the most, following the increase in new cases in these areas: there were 120,250 cases pending as at 30 September 2025 in relation to applications for international protection, 29.6% more than in 2024, while there were 83,519 cases pending in relation to public employment, 13.7% more than in 2024.

The 'Pinto' backlog

The increase in pending cases, however, is not reflected in the 'Pinto' backlog, which continues to fall. These are the cases for which there is compensation for excessive duration, established by the Pinto law (law 89/2001) when exceeding the threshold of three years in court, two years in appeal or one year in cassation.

As at 30 September 2025, there were 56,477 such proceedings in the Court of Cassation, half of them in tax matters (down 9.4% compared to 2024), 48,738 in the Court of Appeal (down 9.1%) and 190,886 in the Courts (down 9%).

This is in line with the NRP objectives, since one of the targets concerns precisely the disposal of the 'pathological' civil backlog.

The disposition time

In addition to cutting the backlog, the NRP also envisages reducing the disposition time of civil trials in the three levels of justice by 40 per cent compared to 2019. According to ministerial monitoring, a decrease of 27.8 per cent was achieved by the first half of 2025.

The data of the ministerial report confirm the downward trend for courts of appeal and the Supreme Court, where the duration on 30 September 2025 was 505 and 847 days, respectively 14.4% and 19.7% less than in 2022.

In court, however, the disposition time as at 30 September 2025 was 347 days, 7.8% more than in 2022.

It is worse in the offices that do not count towards the Pnrr targets: in the juvenile courts the disposition time on 30 September 2025 was 695 days, 15.4% more than in 2022, and in the justice of the peace offices it was 409 days, up 10.5% over the same period.

Valentina MaglioneRedattore
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