The Italian system

ITALIAN JURIDICAL SYSTEM ( Source Giustizia.it)

The judicial function (Administering Justice) can be broken down into the following areas: ordinary civil and criminal, administrative, accounting, military, and taxation.

Jurisdiction over administrative matters is exercised by "Tribunali Amministrativi Regionali" - T.A.R. (Regional Administrative Courts) and by the "Consiglio di Stato" (Council of State). Jurisdiction over accounting matters is exercised by the "Corte dei conti" (Court of Accounts) with the General Public Prosecutor's office based at the same court.
Jurisdiction over taxation matters is exercised by the Provincial Taxation Commissions and the District Taxation Commissions. Jurisdiction in military affairs is exercised by: Military Courts, Military Appeal Courts, Surveillance Military Courts, Military Prosecutors based at the military courts, and General Military Prosecutors based at the Military Appeal Courts, and the General Military Prosecutor based at the Court of Cassation.

Jurisdiction over ordinary civil and criminal matters is exercised by magistrates belonging to the Judicial Order which is divided into judges on the one side and magistrates of the public prosecutor's office on the other, fulfilling the roles of judges and investigators respectively.
The different types of "Judges" can be divided up as follows:

Magistrates in the Public Prosecution service can be divided up as follows:

The following are specific offices within the public prosecutor service: the National Anti-Mafia Public Prosecutor and the District anti-Mafia Public Prosecutor.


Administration of Ordinary Civil and Criminal Justice

The administration of ordinary civil and criminal justice is one of the most important services provided to the citizen by the State. It includes a judicial and an administrative function.

The judicial function is exercised by the magistrates while the administrative function is entrusted to the Minister of Justice.

The magistrates are based and work from the Court Offices, located in accordance with local territorial jurisdictional areas.

The Minister of Justice carries out the administrative functions through a structure divided between the Ministry of Justice staff (made up of the Rome central office) and the staff of the court offices, representing the outlying centres of the administration.

In addition to the judicial function, the court offices carry out both purely administrative duties (under the Ministry) and judicial services acting as support for the judicial function, carried out by the magistrates.
The administrative functions of the outlying offices are carried out both by administrative staff and by those magistrates appointed as heads of the court office.


The Minister and the Ministry of Justice

Two articles of the Italian Constitution mention the Minister of Justice's important duties: the organisation and running of the service necessary for the exercise of the judicial function (Article 110) and the exercise of disciplinary action against magistrates (Article 107).

More generally, one of the Minister of Justice's important functions in the context of the executive arm, is that of Holder of the Seals.

This means that the Minister assumes the position of the main guarantor and office holder responsible for the laws approved by Parliament by the affixing of the seal. He or she is also responsible for their publication in the Official Gazette of the Republic and for the maintenance of the official collection of the corpus of laws and decrees.

The Minister has been given other important duties by the various laws contained in the Codes and in the judicial regulation.

The Ministry of Justice's duties are thus concerned both with administrative activities in the areas of management and provision of services, and activities of particular importance connected to the legal system as a whole.
The services include the following: staff recruitment and administration, provision of buildings, operational structures and capital goods.
The Ministry's management duties cover 4 sectors: judicial, prisons, juvenile justice and notarial archives.

The Ministries duties in relation to the legal system in general, consist of specific duties in the area of legislation, in the regulation of the professions, in the enforcement of punishments and the treatment of prisoners. They also include examination of applications for pardon to put to the President of the Republic, as well as of requests for authorisation to proceed with proceedings, for extradition, for service of international interrogatories, etc...
In the Relations with the Superior Council of the Magistracy, the Minister participates in the procedure for the appointment of the heads of the court offices and may take part in the Council's meetings to give indications or clarification. The Minister is also entitled to request information on the functioning of the justice system in relation to individual judges or magistrates from the head of a particular court office. He or she is also able to exercise functions of inspection and the conduct of administrative enquiries both for the fulfilment of his or her constitutional duties and for the purposes of the taking of disciplinary action.

Legal System (source “Living and Working in Italy”)

Laws and Courts in Italy

Italian law is based on Roman law, particularly its civil law, and on French Napoleonic law (itself based on the Roman model).



The codes of the Kingdom of Sardinia in civil and penal affairs were extended to the whole of Italy when Italy was unified in the mid-19th century. The revised 1990 penal code replaced the old ‘inquisitory’ system with an accusatory system similar to that of common-law countries.
Besides the codes, there are innumerable statutes that integrate the codes and regulate areas of law for which no codes exist, such as public law. Under the Italian constitution, the judiciary is independent of the legislature and the executive, and therefore jurisdictional functions can be performed only by magistrates and judges cannot be dismissed.
The Italian judicial system consists of a series of courts and a body of judges who are civil servants. The judicial system is unified, every court being part of the national network.
The highest court is the Supreme Court of Appeal, which has appellate jurisdiction and gives judgements only on points of law. The 1948 constitution prohibits special courts with the exception of administrative courts and military court-martials, although a vast network of tax courts has survived from an earlier period.
The Italian legal system is inordinately complicated and most lawyers ( avvocato) and judges ( giudici) are baffled by the conflicts between different laws, many dating back centuries, and EU directives serve to complicate matters further.
There are literally thousands of laws, most of which are ignored, and newcomers must learn where to draw the line between laws that are enforced and those that aren’t or are only weakly enforced. It sometimes appears that there’s one law for foreigners and another for Italians, and fines ( multe) are commonplace.
The legal system grinds very slowly and it takes years for a case to come to court; the average time between indictment and a court judgement is ten years, and eight out of ten convictions involving prison terms never take effect. This means that you should do everything possible to avoid going to court, by taking every conceivable precaution when doing business in Italy, i.e. obtaining expert legal advice in advance.
If things go wrong, it can take years to achieve satisfaction and in the case of fraud the chances are that those responsible will have gone broke, disappeared or even died by the time the case is decided.
Even when you have a cast-iron case there’s no guarantee of winning and it may be better to write off a loss as ‘experience’. Local courts, judges and lawyers frequently abuse the system to their own ends and almost anyone with enough money or expertise can use the law to their own advantage.

Criminal Courts in Italy
The criminal legal process involves judges, tribunals and assize courts ( corte d’assise), which include juries ( giudici popolari), unlike other courts which are composed entirely of lawyers. Once a trial has been concluded and judgement passed, a party found guilty can appeal the decision to an appeal court. If the appeal fails, it may be possible to appeal to the supreme court, but only on the grounds of the wrong interpretation or application of the law by a judge.

Civil Courts in Italy
Civil justice is applied in disputes between private bodies and in some cases also between private and public administrations. Civil justice is dispensed by justices of the peace ( giudici conciliatori/guidice giudice di pace), judges ( pretori), tribunals ( tribunali), appeal courts ( corti d’appello) and the supreme court ( corte di cassazione).
The conciliatori and pretori are single-person organs, while the tribunali and corti are collective organs comprising variable numbers of members. A justice of the peace generally has jurisdiction in all civil law cases concerning property up to a value of €2,600 (similar to a small claims court in other countries).

Administrative Courts
Administrative courts have two functions: the protection of legitimate interests ( interessi legittimi), i.e. the protection of individual interests directly connected with public interests, and the supervision and control of public funds. Administrative courts are provided by the judicial sections of the council of state, the oldest juridical-administrative advisory organ of government.
The court of accounts has both an administrative and a judicial function, the latter primarily involving fiscal affairs. The losing party has the option of requesting a review of the entire case by the council of state ( consiglio di stato) in Rome, whose judgement is final.

Summary and useful information

The judicial function (Administering Justice) can be broken down into the following areas: ordinary civil and criminal (http://www.tribunale.roma.it/), administrative, accounting, military, and taxation.
Jurisdiction over administrative matters is exercised by "Tribunali Amministrativi Regionali" - T.A.R. (Regional Administrative Courts) and by the "Consiglio di Stato" (Council of State http://www.giustizia-amministrativa.it/)
Jurisdiction over accounting matters is exercised by the "Corte dei conti" (Court of Accounts) with the General Public Prosecutor's office based at the same court (http://www.corteconti.it/).

Jurisdiction in military affairs is exercised by: Military Courts, Military Appeal Courts, Surveillance Military Courts, Military Prosecutors based at the military courts, and General Military Prosecutors based at the Military Appeal Courts, and the General Military Prosecutor based at the Court of Cassation.

Jurisdiction over ordinary civil and criminal matters is exercised by magistrates belonging to the Judicial Order which is divided into judges on the one side and magistrates of the public prosecutor's office on the other, fulfilling the roles of judges and investigators respectively.
The different types of  civil "Judges" can be divided up as follows:
Judge of Peace (Giudice di Pace)
Tribunal (Tribunale) (http://www.tribunale.roma.it/)
Juvenile Court (Tribunale dei Minorenni)
Court of Appeal (Corte di Appello)
Court of Cassation (Corte di Cassazione) (http://www.cortedicassazione.it/)

THE ITALIAN JUDICIAL SYSTEM (Source csm.it )

Useful Link:
www.carabinieri.it (CARABINIERI)
www.poliziadistato.it (POLIZIA)
www.gdf.it (GUARDIA DI FINANZA)
www.giustizia.it (MINISTERO DELLA GIUSTIZIA)
www.interno.it (MINISTERO DELL’INTERNO)
www.cortedicassazione.it (CORTE DI CASSAZIONE)
www.difesa.it (MINISTERO DELLA DIFESA)
www.csm.it (CONSIGLIO SUPERIORE DELLA MAGISTRATURA)

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