Lazio Regional Administrative Court

No to exclusion from the competition for the Police for criminal family background

The moral and conduct requirements must apply to the candidate. Or the administration must show how the family of origin has adversely affected him/her

by Patrizia Maciocchi

12 December 2025

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Versione italiana

Key points

enlistment in the army and life away from the family
Proof of negative influence
Unless cohabitation before majority

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

A candidate cannot be deniedadmission to the Guardia di finanza competition for lacking themoral and conduct requirements due to the criminal-precedents concerning thefamily members of the applicant.The Lazio Regional Administrative Court, with sentence 22444, has thus upheld the appeal of a young woman excluded from the procedure "for lack of moral qualities and conduct". A discriminatory decision in the opinion of the administrative judges of Lazio. The obstacle to enrolment had been identified in the 'curriculum vitae' of the applicant's family members. The father had been reported for damage and undue appropriation and reported to be in the company of multiple convicted persons belonging - or believed to be close - to a local mafia gang.

Also weighing on the no vote was the non-pristine criminal record of the paternal and maternal uncles, with offences ranging from illegal carrying of weapons to previous convictions for mafia association. A criminal context that, for the General Command of the Guardia di Finanza, barred the way to the competition. This is because 'the circumstance that the candidate had lived with a person with a police record and who frequented promoters or members of the aforementioned mafia gang up to the age of majority would not be favourable, since such a family context could have influenced the aspirant's value framework or be an indication of a model towards which she could be oriented; moreover, once she has been placed in service, the candidate could find herself repressing conduct perpetrated by those very persons or persons similar to them'.

Enlistment in the army and life away from the family

Nor was the fact that the girl had done her military service and that she had left her family home when she came of age sufficient to support her. An estrangement deemed not radical, since the young woman, when on leave, went to her homeland, to a house that was only 400 metres away from her father's.

The Tar, then, is forced to recall that the morality and conduct requirements for access to the Guardia di finanza concern exclusively the candidate. Exclusion cannot be based, therefore, on a simple automatic equation between this and the family background of origin. Unless the administration gives "concrete reasons for the reasons for the deemed future unreliability". The administrative judges admit that, "within the framework of the broad discretion that characterises such assessments" the administration may consider all the circumstances that characterise the social and family context in which the candidate moves, including any family relationships.

The proof of a negative influence

But the reliability of possible influences depends "on the concrete circumstances qualifying the relationship, such as, above all, cohabitation or, in any case, habitual frequentation". It is therefore up to the administration to demonstrate how the family relationship is capable of negatively conditioning "the candidate's judgement of incensurability". And in the case examined, the reasons are not valid, because no reference is made to the applicant for the no to the competition, but only the formal relationship with her aunt and uncle and her father, with whom she has not lived for years.

The Tar emphasised that 'family ties are not accompanied by any element showing actual environmental conditioning'. The aspiring financier had been away from the family environment for about a year and a half and had not shown any adherence to the criminal context. On the contrary, both by leaving her father's home and by joining the armed forces, she had shown that she wanted to embrace a culture of legality. Nor could the choice to spend his leave in his home country where his father also resided be relevant. 'That circumstance, in itself, cannot be interpreted as indicating moral reprehensibility'.

Conhabitation before the age of majority is irrelevant

"It is unreasonable to require the applicant, in order to express her disapproval of the conduct complained of by her family members, to completely sever all affective ties with her place of origin, including family members and friends who are estranged from any criticism. To demand such a radical severing - the judges write - of emotional ties would unjustifiably shift the judgment from the applicant's personal conduct to her geographical and social origin, configuring a risk of discriminatory assessment instead of a concrete and proportionate appreciation of the applicant's morality. The contested measure then reverses the burden of proof in an unjustified manner on the candidate, who is required to prove that she has effectively dissociated herself from her family environment. Or, more generally, from the criminal environment from which she came, thus introducing a presumption of reprehensibility foreign to the system of causes of unfitness, it being the duty of the administration to indicate the elements that would render the reliability unreliable, which is to be considered to exist until proven otherwise. Similarly, it is entirely unreasonable to consider that the mere fact of having lived, until the age of majority, with a family member with a police record could have altered the applicant's value framework'. This is so even in view of the tender age that the woman was at the time of the facts alleged against her father and aunt and uncle.

Satisfied with the decision was lawyer Giorgio Carta, who defended the young woman. "The Lazio Regional Administrative Court clarified that exclusion from a public competition cannot be based on generic evaluations or on presumptions linked to the family of origin. The Guardia di Finanza,' stresses lawyer Carta, 'is required to judge the candidate for what he has done, for his personal conduct and for the objective facts concerning him. In this case, any concrete element of unreliability of the applicant was missing: she was incensed, with a regular and consistent life path and was already a military member of the Army deemed worthy. The ruling, therefore, reaffirms an essential principle of legality, especially in competitions: responsibilities are personal and cannot be inherited'.