Justice

Milan, the platform that evaluates magistrates debuts amidst controversy

The ANM: risk of pressure on the togas. Lawyers: only constructive dialogue

3 May 2025

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Green light from the Milan Bar Association for a new platform for sending reports on magistrates and administrative staff of Milan's judicial offices.

The aim - in the opinion of the Milanese Bar Association - is to contribute to improving the efficiency of the judicial system by offering lawyers and trainees a tool through which they can report not only dysfunctions or criticalities, but also positive and virtuous aspects of the judicial offices. The Order undertakes to examine the reports received and, if necessary, to make contact with the heads of the offices to address the issues raised.

What it does and how to access it

Following the recent reform of the judicial system, it is possible to send both negative and positive reports concerning magistrates, relating to situations that may affect their professionalism. These reports must refer to concrete facts, such as behaviour highlighting a lack of independence in the judicial function or of adequacy in legal preparation.

After an in-depth analysis by a council committee," the order informs, "the reports deemed significant and well-founded will be forwarded to the heads of the offices. In addition, they may be used by the order to express opinions on the professionalism of magistrates for appointments and confirmations of directorships. All personal data entered into the platform will be processed in accordance with the current privacy regulations, guaranteeing correctness, lawfulness and transparency.

To enter the platform, the rules of use and privacy notices, one must use one's access credentials to the reserved areas of the site. The procedure, already sketched out by Minister Cartabia and implemented in 2024 by Justice Minister Carlo Nordio, is being tested for the first time.

Critical points and concerns

Although he sees potential in the tool, Sergio Rossetti of the central executive board of the National Association of Magistrates does not hide his perplexity. For Rossetti, although the platform aims to create a single container for reports, greatly increasing the reporting lawyer's sense of responsibility (to write he must be identified and therefore use this tool with appropriate caution) "one cannot hide the fact that it comes in an extremely delicate climate in which individual magistrates have often been personally attacked, even by leading political figures, for the decisions they have taken on merit".

An instrument, in Rossetti's opinion, that, moving away from the virtuous reasons that led to its institution, "could be surreptitiously used to discredit the work of individual magistrates or, however, to generate forms of abnormal pressure on the orderly conduct of judicial activity". For the member of the ANM junta, it will therefore be up to the Order "to scrutinise with extreme prudence and accuracy the reports that will come in, trying to keep this instrument in the context for which it was conceived".

Priority to the protection of the lawyers

A task of monitoring and protection of the toughest lawyers that the president of the Order, Antonino La Lumia, guarantees: "Every report," explains La Lumia, "will be carefully assessed with a view to constructive dialogue with the judiciary. And that is not all: personal data entered into the platform will be treated in compliance with privacy regulations.

Enrico Costa, Forza Italia deputy, gave a clear positive judgement. "Lawyers will be able to write reports on the magistrates' activities, the Order will be able to make them its own and address them to the Judicial Council so that they end up in the file of the professionalism evaluations (today 99.6% positive) to the Csm".

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