The government has been forced to increase magistrates’ salaries and auxiliary staff wages

First the cost of energy, then pensions. And now the judiciary too. The drafting of the forthcoming budget bill is becoming even more complicated for the government, which will be called upon to find the resources to increase magistrates’ salaries and the remuneration of court staff. This is no trivial matter, especially when seeking funding for a budget with already very tight margins. The need for action on the judicial front has been confirmed by numerous recent administrative court rulings in which the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) has consistently been unsuccessful. In early July, the Council of State, upholding the appeal by the National Magistrates’ Association, ordered the government to revise upwards the salary increases for magistrates that had been set by a Prime Ministerial Decree for the three-year period 2018–2020. 

Two laws from the 1980s, in fact, provide for a triennial adjustment to magistrates’ salaries ‘in line with the average of the increases achieved over the previous three-year period by other categories of civil servants’. In the case in question, the adjustments set out in the Prime Ministerial Decree of 6 August 2021 had already been deemed incorrect by both the Lazio Regional Administrative Court and the Council of State, as they were based on calculations that excluded certain components of total remuneration, failed to take into account all categories of public sector employees, and favoured a weighted average that would have penalised the final outcome. Thus, in the face of the government’s delays, the Palazzo Spada has once again ruled in favour of the ANM, noting that, in the meantime, ISTAT has already recalculated the figures, raising the increase to be granted for the 2018–2020 three-year period to 6.22 per cent, up from the 4.85 per cent originally provided for in the decree. According to some estimates, the new calculation will result in expenditure of around 200 million euros, or an average of around 16,000 euros per magistrate.

But that is not all, because on 14 August the Lazio Regional Administrative Court also annulled the acts underpinning the Prime Ministerial Decree of 3 June 2024, which concerned the adjustment of magistrates’ salaries for the three-year period 2021–2023, ruling that the government’s calculations were incorrect in this case too, even though it had set increases of 6.69 per cent. The Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) and the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) will have 90 days to recalculate the figures – obviously upwards – with the result that they will have to provide for a further increase in expenditure. Faced with this series of setbacks from the administrative courts, it is also easy to imagine that Palazzo Chigi will postpone the adoption of the decree covering the three-year period 2024–2026, which will have to provide for salary increases higher than originally envisaged in order to avoid yet another legal dispute.

Magistrates are a fortunate group: they are among the few to benefit from regular pay rises, but the only ones able to compel central government, through their own rulings, to implement these pay rises immediately and correctly (in spite of the delays in renewing public sector contracts).

Of a completely different nature, however, is the ruling issued in recent days by the Lazio Regional Administrative Court, which has ordered the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) and the Ministry of Justice to review, within 120 days, the remuneration provided for judicial assistants (advisers, translators, interpreters), which has not been updated since 2002 – that is, for 24 years. This delay has led to an unmanageable situation, with starvation wages and consequent difficulties for judicial offices in finding the experts needed to proceed with trials.

On Thursday, Deputy Minister Francesco Paolo Sisto announced that Via Arenula “has already sent the text updating the fees for court-appointed technical consultants (CTUs) to the Ministry of the Economy for approval”, expressing his conviction that the decree revising the 2002 regulations could be issued “well before the 120 days” specified in the ruling of the Lazio Regional Administrative Court.

The most significant impact on the forthcoming budget bill is undoubtedly the adjustment to magistrates’ salaries. It will be up to Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti to secure the necessary funding for this as well.

Ermes Antonucci