"A billion? Pah!" The ANM disputes Meloni’s figures on arrears owed to magistrates

“On average, individual magistrates will receive a sum ten times lower than that discussed in recent days and, in any case, this relates to arrears rather than a pay rise.” The secretary of the National Magistrates’ Association, Rocco Maruotti, responded in this way to the statements made by Giorgia Meloni, who announced on Sunday that she did not intend to sign the Prime Ministerial Decree on the adjustment of magistrates’ salaries and the payment of the related arrears. Speaking on the programme 24Mattino on Radio24, Maruotti disputed the figures cited by the Prime Minister and condemned “the attempt to pit different categories of workers against one another”.

The president of the ANM, Giuseppe Tango, also denied in an interview with La Repubblica the rumour circulating in the press of a bonus of one hundred thousand euros for each magistrate. “It is a complete lie,” he said. According to the estimates outlined by Tango, a judge with thirty years’ service will be entitled to receive a total of around fifteen thousand euros, including six years’ back pay, whilst for those at the start of their career the figure will be around five thousand euros. “I am also prepared to produce the payslip showing the back pay, should it ever be paid,” added the association’s president.

Regarding the total cost, as previously reported in Il Foglio, reliable sources within the Ministry of Justice suggest a figure closer to two hundred million euros than the one billion cited by the Prime Minister. The same sources expect Meloni to sign the Prime Ministerial Decree, possibly spreading the payment over instalments. 

The Public Prosecutor of Naples, Nicola Gratteri, also spoke out to challenge the figures. “It is misleading to talk of 100,000 euros each,” he stated. “I, who am about to retire, am due to receive 13,000 euros, whilst magistrates with just a few years’ service will receive around 5,000.” The public prosecutor therefore considers it “misleading” to “portray something as obvious and a matter of course as the payment of arrears to magistrates as a scandal”.

The story concerns the recalculation of the pay rises provided for by law, following administrative rulings that deemed the criteria used to be unlawful. Maruotti pointed out that the three-year pay rise mechanism was designed to guarantee the judiciary’s independence from politics. Responding to the Prime Minister’s invitation to meet and negotiate, the ANM secretary stated that “we must not negotiate our salaries periodically with the government. Even merely breaking this principle is dangerous”.

Tango extended the debate to the possible consequences of Meloni’s remarks. When asked about the warning issued by Ernesto Carbone, a lay member of the High Council of the Judiciary (CSM), who claimed that the Prime Minister was fuelling “public outrage against magistrates”, the president of the National Association of Magistrates (ANM) replied that “unfortunately, this is a fact”. “But this is how targets are identified,” he added, referring to “the terrible consequences to which so many magistrates are exposed” and speaking of “social hatred and media pillorying, which we hope will not also result in reckless actions”.

According to the president of the ANM, behind the clash lies an electoral strategy that consists of ‘channelling resentment towards a specific group’. “Italian magistrates cannot be made the scapegoats for a government’s difficulties,” argued Tango, who confirmed his willingness to meet Meloni to discuss the construction of court buildings, staff shortages, the length of trials and prison overcrowding. On the issue of back pay, however, he called for compliance with court rulings, warning that the cost of a further delay would fall on taxpayers.