Gratteri and the use of anti-politics to defend magistrates’ salaries

Nicola Gratteri has entered the fray in the clash between the government and the ANM over pay rises for magistrates, with the latter set to receive one billion euros in arrears and pay rises following the Council of State’s rulings, whilst the former intends to change the method for calculating salaries in future (reverting to the more modest weighted average used prior to the rulings). The Public Prosecutor of Naples, formerly the leading voice of the judiciary in the referendum campaign against justice reform, has intervened with two highly demagogic arguments: the first is that the pay rise is not actually a rise; the second is that it is politicians, who earn far more, who should set an example by cutting their own salaries. Although effective on talk shows, these are two fallacious arguments. 

“It’s not a pay rise,” says Gratteri, speaking as a guest on Otto e mezzo, referring to the rulings of the Council of State. “In previous years, an incorrect calculation was made based on the average pay rise for certain categories of civil servants. It’s an adjustment, not a pay rise. It’s not 100,000 euros; nobody knows exactly how much it is, but it’s certainly not 100,000.”

Let us set aside the sophistry of ‘it’s an adjustment, not a pay rise’ and focus on the substance. It is not true that the arrears are the result of ‘an incorrect calculation’, because Istat calculated the adjustment index for magistrates as it had always done. What was different was that, for the last two three-year periods, the magistrates of the Council of State – following an appeal by the magistrates and the ANM – ruled that, according to a new interpretation of the law, the calculation method had to be changed from the ‘weighted average’ of the increases for other categories to the simple average, which pushes up the increases for magistrates. Nor is it true that ‘nobody knows’ how much magistrates are due. The ANM does not know – having previously released false figures and now recalculating them – but the State Accounting Office has already done the maths: the impact of these rulings on the public budget is 979 million euros, which is therefore not far off the 100,000 euros per magistrate that has been mentioned (the number of beneficiaries is around 11,000).

After stating that the pay rise is not actually a pay rise, and that in any case magistrates are legally entitled to it because there is a judicial ruling to that effect, the Public Prosecutor of Naples resorted to some outdated anti-establishment rhetoric. “If we don’t have any money right now, let’s all take a pay cut,” said Gratteri. “I lead a simple life; I’m not attached to money. Do you want to take a thousand euros off my salary? Fine,” he continued. “I don’t know how much I earn – perhaps 8,500 euros. But there are those who earn 15,000 euros a month, such as MPs, so let’s cut theirs.” The comparison with the salaries of MPs and senators is surreal. Firstly, because MPs’ pay is indexed to that of magistrates, but above all because – unlike magistrates – they have suffered a pay cut in recent decades.

By law, MPs are entitled to remuneration not exceeding that of a Section President of the Court of Cassation. In practice, however, this is not the case. Over the past twenty years, politicians have cut their own pay and then frozen it. In 2005, the allowance stood at around 12,400 euros gross per month, before falling to 11,700 euros in 2026. In 2007, a five-year freeze on pay rises was agreed, which was subsequently extended until the present day. In 2011, the salary was cut to 11,200 euros and in 2012 slashed to 10,400 euros, a level it remains at to this day. According to calculations by the Chamber of Deputies dating from 2023, had it not been for all these measures to reduce and freeze pay rises, the parliamentary allowance would have amounted (in 2023) to around 16,400 euros: 60 per cent more. The daily allowance, paid as reimbursement for expenses and accommodation in Rome, has also been cut by 500 euros and frozen at 3,500 euros per month.

Judges’ salaries, on the other hand, have gone in the opposite direction. Gratteri’s interviews alone are enough to illustrate the scale of the increases. “I earn 7,400 euros a month,” he said in an interview with Corriere della Sera in 2023. “I earn 8,500 euros a month,” he told Lilli Gruber three years later. Of course, Gratteri is referring to net figures, which must be doubled to allow for a comparison with the gross figures he uses for MPs. Furthermore, following the rulings of the Council of State, a magistrate such as Gratteri – at his seventh professional assessment and with 40 years’ service – will receive back pay totalling 64,000 euros and a full salary increase of 22,000 euros per annum. According to data from the State Accounting Office, from 2020 to 2024 (the years in which, according to the ANM’s appeal, salaries increased too little), the average salary of magistrates rose by 16 per cent, from 136,000 to 158,000 euros per annum.

Over the last 20 years, MPs’ allowances have fallen by 10 per cent in nominal terms, whilst those of magistrates have risen by over 30 per cent. There is one key difference: MPs, despite being able to increase their salaries, chose to cut them; whereas magistrates, despite receiving an automatic pay rise, took legal action to secure a higher increase. Surprisingly, they found magistrates who ruled that, in fact, magistrates should receive higher pay rises. There are many arguments in favour of high salaries for magistrates, but Gratteri’s anti-establishment and anti-political rhetoric is not only false but, in this instance, the least appropriate stance for magistrates to take.