Wrong Pec address forfeits right to appeal the judgment

The question of the constitutionality of the inadmissibility of an appeal sent to a Pec address other than the prescribed one is unfounded. This was established by the Constitutional Court with sentence 77 deposited yesterday, a question raised by the First Criminal Section of the Italian Supreme Court, with reference to articles 3 and 24 of the Constitution, article 6, § 1 of the ECHR- and article 87-bis, paragraphs 7, lett. c and 8 of Legislative Decree 150/2022.

Service on the Pec address other than the correct one (consisting of the address assigned to the office that issued the contested measure) even if it reaches the court a quo within the time limit for filing, therefore forfeits the right to oppose.

While waiting for the full implementation of the telematic criminal trial and the general model outlined in Article 111-bis of the Code of Criminal Procedure, in fact, the relevant transitional provision (Article 87-bis of Legislative Decree 150/2022) provided for the possibility of transmitting criminal procedural documents, and in particular appeals of real or personal precautionary measures, by Pec, provided that the destination address of the competent judicial office is included in the official lists prepared by the General Director of Automated Information Systems (DGIA) of the Ministry of Justice, which is in charge of identifying the Pec addresses of the judicial offices receiving the filings.

The problem arises when an appeal is filed telematically at a Pec address that is not indicated in the Dgsia decree of 9 November 2020. In the face of a jurisprudential framework oscillating between inadmissibility (Criminal Court of Cassation, 47577/2024; Criminal Court of Cassation, 28163/2025) and amendability (Criminal Court of Cassation, 3403/2025; Criminal Court of Cassation, 24346/2025) of the error committed in the filing or telematic transmission of the appeal, the United Sections of the Criminal Court of Cassation intervened to settle the interpretative contrast (judgment 18 February 2026, no. 6565), clarifying that an appeal transmitted to a Pec address not included in the list provided for by the Dgsia decree, even if referable to the judicial office competent to receive it, is inadmissible, unless the notice of appeal has been forwarded, within the legal terms, with the same telematic modality, from the receipt box of the Pec address not included in the aforementioned list to the box of the address included in that list.

The Constitutional Court takes up the orientation expressed by the Unified Sections, holding, on the one hand, that the procedural sanction of the inadmissibility of an appeal submitted to the Pec address of the judicial office responsible for the appeal, rather than to the one that issued the contested measure, is not unreasonable or contrary to the right of defence and, on the other hand, 'saving' the appeal in the event that the court clerk who has received it by mistake forwards it motu proprio, electronically and within the peremptory time limit provided for by law, to the Pec address of the clerk's office of the competent court, thus preserving the 'digital continuity' of the procedural process (in the present case, the complaint had been sent by mistake to a Pec address referring to the supervisory court, judge ad quem, rather than to the supervisory office which had issued the contested measure).