Migrants, free legal aid even without a tax code

A non-EU citizen may apply for legal aid even if he/she does not have a tax code or a stable tax domicile in Italy. In order to make the application it is, in fact, sufficient for him to provide his data: first name, surname, place and date of birth, sex and tax domicile abroad. The Court of Cassation (sentence 38751) thus upheld the appeal of a young man from Mali, born in 1998, against the decision of the Tribunal of Milan to reject his application for legal aid because he did not have a tax identification number. For the judges, what his lawyer had obtained through an online application, without depositing the documents required for the tax verifications useful for admission to the benefit, was not valid.

The judges of legitimacy start from the rules. And they point out that the Consolidated text of the legislative and regulatory provisions on legal expenses (Presidential Decree 115/2002, Article 79) provides, under penalty of inadmissibility of the application for admission to legal aid for the indigent, the indication of the tax code. A rule that must be read in 'conjunction' with the provisions concerning the tax registry and the taxpayers' tax code (Presidential Decree 605/1973 no. 605), which contemplates the possibility, for persons not resident in the territory of the State, to make up for the absence of an Italian tax code that has not been assigned, by indicating their personal data and tax domicile.

In a constitutionally oriented ruling, the Supreme Court concludes that there is no reason to exclude the same treatment for the irregular non-EU citizen for the purpose of admission to legal aid. It is therefore also sufficient for the Malian applicant to declare his data and domicile in another country.