Victim protection in the Constitution, majority doubts in the House

A new constitutional reform bill on the subject of justice lands in the Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday, but this time doubts and perplexities are all within the majority. After the broad consensus in the Senate at the beginning of 2025, the inclusion in the Constitution of the principle of protection of crime victims has now been the subject of a heated debate in the Justice Committee. Where, however, calls for caution on the point, later crystallised in the approved opinion, came from the political forces supporting the Meloni government.

What has re-emerged are elements that have already been dealt with in the course of the Senate's work, but which are reappearing now. Above all, the point of real criticality is determined by the possible friction of the new principle with the presumption of innocence, an aspect that had been overcome in Palazzo Madama thanks to a different placement of the protection of the crime victim, from Article 111 of the Constitution on due process to Article 24 on the right of defence and the right to take legal action.

Stressing the need for maximum attention was above all Forza Italia, with speeches first by Davide Bellomo and then by the deputy minister of Justice Francesco Paolo Sisto. The former emphasised the notion of 'crime victim', which joins established figures in the criminal justice system, such as the offended person, the injured party and the civil party. The new notion, Bellomo recalled, is more recent and its contours more elusive if eccentric with respect to the field of restorative justice. Hence the possible tensions with the not guilty principle. Vice-Minister Sisto agreed, for whom the full compatibility between the two principles should also be the subject of in-depth examination in the courtroom.

The opposition was critical, with the leader of the PD group Federico Gianassi recalling that in the Senate it was Forza Italia itself, with Pierantonio Zanettin, that had followed the procedure of the measure, favouring the different placement in Article 24, a passage that had allowed the stalemate to be overcome. Now calling into question that choice is, for Gianassi, a symptom of the majority's confusion.

In the end, however, the text of the approved opinion takes on board the perplexities and puts it in black and white that 'the appropriateness of the reference to the "victim of the crime" should be assessed, also in order to avoid profiles of contradiction with the constitutional principle of non-guilt until final conviction'.