Ministry of Justice data

Increasing reimbursement of legal costs for those acquitted

The balance of the first four years of application of the rule shows growth in applications and amounts settled

by Giovanni Negri

4 February 2026

GIUSTIZIA TRIBUNALE PROCESSO GIUDICE MARTELLETTO

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Versione italiana

Key points

The budget
The institution
Conditions
L’importo
The procedure
Requirements
Changes

2' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

There are 2,111 requests forreimbursement of legal costs, submitted by defendants who have been definitively acquitted and accepted in the last three years, for a total amount of approximately 12 million. These data were provided by the Ministry of Justice to the Chamber of Deputies, replying in the Justice Commission to a question tabled by Enrico Costa (Forza Italia) .

The Budget

Applications are growing, as confirmed by the analysis of all the years of application of the new measure supporting the presumption of innocence. If, in fact, in the first year of implementation, in the financial year 2022, out of 362 applications submitted 183 were admitted for reimbursement, with the total sum of €950,948 paid out, in 2025 out of 919 applications submitted 767 were accepted, for €4,436,190. For this year, so far, 29 applications have been accepted with a total settlement amount of €252,652.

L’istituzione

The fund to reimburse thelegal expenses of defendants acquitted was set up by an amendment by Costa himself to the Budget Law for 2021 (Law 178/2020); only at the end of 2021, with a decree of 21 December, issued by the Ministry of Justice in agreement with the MEF, were the criteria and modalities for the reimbursement defined.

The Conditions

Central to this are the categories of inclusion and exclusion linked to the acquittal formulas: thus, the recipients of ajudgment of final acquittal pronounced "because the fact does not exist", "because he did not commit the fact", "because the fact does not constitute an offence or is not envisaged by law as an offence", excluding cases in which the latter pronouncement was made as a result of decriminalisation of the facts on which the charge was based.

Excluded, on the other hand, are those who, despite having been acquitted on some counts, were convicted on others; those who have been the subject of a sentence extinguishing the offence due to prescription or amnesty; those who have benefited from legal aid in the same proceedings; those who have obtained the plaintiff's sentence to reimbursement of legal costs; those who are already entitled to reimbursement of legal costs from the body on which they are employed.

L’importo

Reimbursement is granted up to a maximum of €10,500.00, and is paid in a single instalment within the year following the year in which the judgment became irrevocable.

The Procedure

The applicant, i.e. the defendant himself, may apply for access to the fund through the telematic platform accessible from the website justice.it with level two Spid credentials. In the case of defendants who are minors or incapacitated, the application may be submitted by the holder of parental responsibility or by their legal representative. In the case of the death of the defendant, the request may be submitted by the heir and, in the case of multiple heirs, by one of the heirs in interest of all.

Requirements

Elements to be indicated include, among others:

the duration of the trial defined by the acquittal judgment that has become irrevocable, calculated from the date on which the measure by which the criminal action was brought was issued to the date on which the acquittal judgment became final;
the amount for which reimbursement is sought, which must have been paid to the legal professional by bank transfer, after the issuance of the fee endorsed by the Bar Council.

The Changes

And it is precisely the Coa certification that Costa is calling for to be abolished, bearing in mind that the ministry itself points out in its reply how many applications were rejected precisely because it was impossible for those concerned to submit the congruity opinion in time.