Milan Court: staffing crisis looms – criminal hearings at risk

A veritable ‘Milan case’. A reduction of over 20 per cent in the workforce, with the paradoxical consequence of lowering the staff shortfall rate from the previous 30 per cent, whilst at the same time exacerbating the overall situation of the judicial office. These are the consequences, in Milan, of the Ministry of Justice decree which, as of 15 September, has restructured the staffing levels for administrative personnel. The Milan Court has been allocated a total staff complement of 891 employees, compared with the 1,127 previously envisaged (on paper, of course). This reduction affects key roles in the administration of the judiciary, such as judicial officers, whose numbers have fallen from 503 to 406, and court clerks, from 406 to 316.

A situation so critical that it prompted the president of the court, Fabio Roia, and the senior official Federica Fiordalisi to write to the Minister of Justice, Carlo Nordio , the heads of the municipal and regional administrations (Giuseppe Sala and Attilio Fontana) and the president of the Milan Bar Association, Antonino La Lumia, and to call an emergency press conference, attended by the president of the Preliminary Investigating Magistrates’ Section, Ezia Maccora, and Fiordalisi herself.

Later that evening, the Ministry replied that, in Milan, ‘measures had been taken to increase the number of judicial service officers (formerly AUpp) by 183 posts, administrative technicians by 13 posts, one accounting officer post and 23 court clerk posts. In light of this recalculation, there has been an improvement in the ratio of administrative staff to judicial staff, which has risen from 2.57 to 3’.

However, as Roia pointed out, what is at risk is not so much – or not only – the consolidation of the outstanding results achieved during the PNRR period, but rather the Milanese justice system’s day-to-day response to citizens’ requests. According to the President of the Court, ‘in the absence of a response, we will have to reduce the number of hearings, both at trial and before the investigating magistrate, whilst trying to prioritise the areas where it is most needed: immigration, corporate insolvency, family law and patents’.

“Even ‘regarding offences of gender-based violence, under the “Codice Rosso” scheme’,” clarified Maccora, who had already set out in writing the difficulties faced by the preliminary investigations office months ago, “we will face problems. The shorter the trial, the sooner we reach a verdict; whereas if we have to extend the timeframe, we may not get the positive outcomes we have now’. And then there are paradoxes whereby, as Maccora pointed out, the push towards e-justice, at least at this stage, brings with it longer processing times: whereas previously an assistant would take half a day to download a hearing record, today it takes a day and a half.