According to Meloni, it will be impossible not to pay the arrears owed to magistrates. But the rules can be changed

Giorgia Meloni has decided to clash with the ANM by refusing to sign the Prime Ministerial Decree (DPCM) implementing the Council of State’s rulings on the increase in magistrates’ salaries, which, including arrears, will cost around one billion euros. The Prime Minister’s strategy has purely political and electoral significance, as opposed to being a necessary but (un)popular measure. However, this decision has no practical consequences. If the Prime Minister fails to implement the rulings, the Council of State will appoint an ad acta commissioner to do so in the government’s stead. The result will be the same as if Meloni had signed the DPCM: the government will pay what is due, the magistrates will receive what they are entitled to, and taxpayers will foot the bill. End of story. But there is something the government ought to do. Politics cannot change court rulings, but it can amend the rules: restoring the method used hitherto to calculate magistrates’ salaries – based on a weighted average – through a specific legislative amendment or an act of authentic interpretation. 

Article 24 of Law No. 448 of 1998 stipulates that magistrates’ salaries are to be adjusted taking into account the ‘average per capita increases’ achieved through collective bargaining agreements for other categories of public sector employees. Istat, in accordance with sound statistical practice, has always applied this rule by calculating a weighted average, that is, by assigning each sector a weight corresponding to the number of employees. It is obvious: if one wishes to calculate the per capita GDP of Italy and the Principality of Monaco, one must take into account the different sizes of the two populations. However, the Council of State has ruled that the law must be interpreted differently: no weighted average, but a simple ‘arithmetic mean’. A sector with millions of employees thus counts for the same as another with just a few thousand: the per capita GDP of Italy is added to that of the Principality of Monaco and then divided by two. This peculiar method of calculation results in a significant increase in judges’ salaries, which applies to the past six years and to all those to come. What is more, this same method can now be extended to other categories specified in the same law: university professors, senior officers in the Armed Forces and the Police, prefects and diplomats. The cost to the state budget is astronomical. Meloni cannot change the past, but she can take action regarding the future. Rather than an instinctive reaction, a considered decision is needed: to revert to the average used previously. A weighted average.