Fine void if the speed camera is only approved but not homologated

The fine for speeding made with an approved but unapproved speed camera is null and void. The Cassazione addresses for the first time an issue that has divided the judges of merit and resolves it by ruling out any equivalence between ministerial approval and approval.
The Supreme Court rejected the appeal by the Municipality of Treviso, which affirmed the validity of the report with which a motorist who was travelling at 97 km/h, on a road with a 90 km/h limit, was found to be speeding. The offence had been 'photographed' by a Red & Speed-Evo-L2 device, not homologated but approved.
For the Court of Treviso, which at first had excluded the equivalence between homologation and approval, the assessment was not valid.

A conclusion that the Supreme Court considers sharable. Correctly - the judges of legitimacy emphasise - the judgment under appeal made a distinction between the two procedures of prototype approval and homologation, which have different characteristics, nature and purpose.Ministerial approval authorises, in fact, the serial reproduction of a device tested in a laboratory, with attribution of competence to the Ministry for Economic Development, while approval consists in a procedure that does not require the comparison of the prototype with characteristics considered fundamental or with particular prescriptions provided for by the regulation.
Approval, therefore, consists in a procedure that - although administrative, like approval - also has a necessarily technical nature. A specific connotation aimed at guaranteeing the perfect functionality and accuracy of the electronic instrument, to be used for assessment by the authorised public official. This is the indispensable condition for the legitimacy of the assessment.

The Court of Cassation emphasises that, even recently, it has been specified that in the event of disputes as to the reliability of the speed measuring device, the judge is required to ascertain whether or not such checks have been carried out. Pointing out that the proof cannot be provided by means other than the type approval and conformity certificates, nor can the proof of the execution of the verifications on the functionality and reliability of the electronic speed measuring instrument be derived from the inspection report. The Court also clarified that the ministerial circulars referred to by the appellant, which would appear to endorse a possible equivalence between type approval and approval, are irrelevant from an interpretative point of view, but are based on an approach that finds no support in primary sources and which, as such, cannot be derogated from by secondary sources or administrative circulars.
The judges of legitimacy offset the costs, by virtue of the novelty of the issue, submitted, in a direct and in-depth manner, for the first time to the examination of the Supreme Court, and of the contrast observed in the jurisprudence on the merits. Also weighing on the decision is the significant practical impact in the general area of road traffic.