Judges: a double cap on spending on salaries
The provision included in the Budget Bill to curb expenditure on pay rises for magistrates does not merely reintroduce the weighted average criterion for calculating the link to civil service salaries. It also cancels out another change introduced into the accounts by the Council of State, removing from the calculation basis the arrears arising from delays in contract renewals. The new cap, as reported in *Il Sole 24 Ore* on 22 October, does not apply to the period from 2021 to 2026, which is the subject of the administrative courts’ rulings. However, it seeks to halt the risk of a geometric increase in costs fuelled by the parameters set out in the judgements, which required the budget to allocate 241 million to cover 2021–23 and 738 million for 2024–26 (a total of 979 million) and the knock-on effect on next year.
To understand the issue, two points must be borne in mind. Magistrates, like university lecturers and senior military officers, do not have employment contracts, and receive a periodic pay rise calculated on the basis of the average per capita increase achieved over the same period by the rest of the civil service. Ordinary and administrative magistrates have contested the parameters used by Istat for the Prime Ministerial Decrees of 2021 and 2024. Both the Regional Administrative Court (TAR) and the Council of State have annulled these, demanding that the calculation be based on the simple average – which gives greater weight to smaller categories with more dynamic salary trends – and that back pay received for contracts signed late be included in the calculation.
The new regulation backtracks on both counts, reintroducing the weighted average and removing arrears from the basket. To avoid further disputes, it introduces parameters for the long term but does not address costs incurred to date: the settlement of these costs remains pending the appointment of an ad acta commissioner, given Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s unwillingness to sign the revised Prime Ministerial Decrees.
