Justice

Pnrr at risk, 500 remote magistrates in the field

Ministry plan for 6 months of enforcement in the most crisis-ridden offices. Handling of the case in writing or hearing only Economic incentives foreseen

by Giovanni Negri

13 May 2025

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Key points

Remote application
Area councillors' opposition

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Thatthe operation (imposed by the Pnrr commitments) of clearing the backlog and reducing pending cases is at a critical stage is testified to by the numbers (see "Il Sole 24 Ore del Lunedì" of 12 May) and the extraordinary plan orchestrated by the Ministry of Justice. Where, for the first time, it is aimed at a remote and large-scale application of a 500 magistrates 'scrum package' with the objective of more incisively attacking pending disputes.

A note to this effect was sent by the Chief of the Cabinet of Via Arenula, Giusi Bartolozzi, to the Csm. The text anticipates the container and content of the intervention. As for the former, it will consist of inserting a new article (23b) in Decree Law no. 19 of 2024, later converted into Law no. 56.

As for the second, the outline of the finalised articles establishes forcivil judges only, a maximum of 500, the possibility of a voluntary application to judicial offices of first and second instance chosen by the SCC independent of the full coverage of the staff among those proposed by the ministry taking into account the level of achievement of the Pnrr objectives on 31 December. The application will last six months and will be renewable once only; the magistrate concerned will continue to remain for all intents and purposes in service at the office to which he belongs.

Remote application

The remotely applied magistrate will hold the audio-visual hearing only; he can then order the substitution of the hearing with the filing of written notes. If all parties jointly oppose the substitution of the hearing with the paper mode, then the streaming mode will be triggered.

The manager in charge of the judicial office of the applied judge will periodically check that his or her productivity is not lower than the average productivity of the office to which he or she belongs. The cases to be submitted to the remotely applied judges shall be identified by the president of the office receiving the institute, with a definition programme, from among those ripe for decision and included in the macro-subjects relevant for the attainment of the Pnrr objectives. It will then be up to the president of the destination office to draw up the report attesting to the successful implementation of the application, a positive outcome that provides for the disposal of at least thirty proceedings in the six-month period.

In order to incentivise the adherence of lawyers, remote application will entitle them to an additional seniority score (0.16) and a monthly availability allowance for all months of application, the amount of which will be increased when the number of remote definitions has exceeded fifty.

The opposition of Area councillors

The hypothesis developed by the ministry, however, already sees the drastic contrariety of the Area councillors, who emphasise that 'the sentence cannot be conceived as the product of the solipsistic reflection of a judge who reads the court papers in the privacy of his study, but must constitute the outcome of an intertwined dialogue between judge and parties from the very first hearing'.

A measure that 'delocalises the decision from the trial of which it is the outcome; that entrusts parties and defenders to a judge they do not know and who does not know them; that dematerialises, after the trial, even the decision, transforming it into an abstract dictum coming from a distant and invisible decision-maker' cannot then be applied.

The Area councillors are not convinced by the idea that some magistrates can take on surplus work without relief in a situation of severe criticality of the staffing levels of many judicial offices.