Italian Justice System Research Articles

The Never-Ending Crisis of Italian Justice: Role and Responsibility of its Governance System

This article analyses four critical dimensions of the Italian justice system’s enduring condition critical: poor predictability of judicial decisions, lack of integrity, low trust, and excessive length of judicial procedures. While the first three critical areas have multiple causes, the role of the dual judicial governance structure, with competencies split between the Ministry of Justice and the Judicial Council, is identified as a relevant cause of lengthy procedures. Judicial statistics show how procedural delays are caused by the inefficient use of available resources due to obsolete allocation mechanisms and high variations in courts’ efficiency. This article argues that cutting-edge resource-allocation systems and integrated court management mechanisms based on workload or performance indicators demand a sustained and coordinated effort between the Ministry and the Council, which may be hard to achieve. More generally, the different constituencies and the competence split between the two bodies make the implementation of integrated judicial management approaches unlikely. The explanation is based on structural and institutional features common to all systems in which two bodies share responsibility on the same policy and managerial areas, so findings are potentially relevant to all judiciaries with this feature. The analysis also gives a reason for the negative correlation between judicial governance settings based on the French or Italian model and judicial efficiency.

The juries’ wisdom in the administration of criminal justice: Irish jurisdiction and the Italian justice system in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

This article aims to investigate the relationship between professional judges and laypersons in criminal matters, with special reference to the decision-making procedure performed by the Irish system and the Italian system in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The paper focuses on judges’ and jurors’ duties both before and after the verdict. This field of research provides context for a careful consideration on some fundamental issues, such as the judges’ charges and their influence over the jury, the principle of reasonable doubt, the distinction between unanimous verdicts and verdicts by majority vote, and the consequences of a disagreement among jurors. A comparative approach reveals how two European countries with a distinctive legal tradition faced the same problems by adopting different solutions.

Cultural Expertise in Italian Criminal Justice: From Criminal Anthropology to Anthropological Expert Witnessing

This article traces the rise and fall of psychiatric evaluation in criminal trials from the School of Criminal Anthropology of the late nineteenth century to the current Italian justice system. Influenced by positivism and by specific theories on human evolution, Cesare Lombroso considered criminal action as the result of organic causes excluding any kind of legal autonomy and responsibility of the accused. The Positive School of Penal Law he founded with Enrico Ferri and Raffaele Garofalo profoundly inspired the Rocco Code, on which the current Italian Penal Code is still based, albeit with revisions and repeals. Drafted in 1930 during the fascist government (1922–1943), the latter has also suffered from racial ideology. In order to assess potential mental illnesses that would exclude the responsibility of the accused, to determine their level of dangerousness and to establish the corresponding security measures introduced by the Rocco Code, Italian criminal justice consolidated the link between penal law and psychiatric instruments. Such faith in psychiatric evaluation, however, has been particularly questioned by the increasing frequency of judicial processes involving members of different cultural communities in Italy since the 1970s. Thus, the predominantly pathological aspects evaluated by forensic psychiatrists have often proved to be conceptually and methodologically inadequate to take fully into account the differences between cultures, as well as the different social and cultural conditions affecting the defendant’s behaviour. This paper argues that cultural anthropology is particularly suited as an instrument capable of disclosing the cultural implications of the legal process and encourages the use of cultural expertise as an important tool for the inclusiveness and understanding of diversity.

Social Reporting in the Italian Justice System: Milan Court Experience

This research analyzes social reporting in Italian court offices, focusing in particular on the latest Milan Court social report, and underlining the problems encountered by operators when applying social reporting methodologies to complex organizations. The results are not very satisfactory—the deficiencies identified do not allow overcoming the three major issues that voluntary reporting entails. In summary, the research shows how difficult it is to adopt social reporting procedures within complex institutions and the need to elaborate new methodologies. Social reporting can have a fundamental role in generating public value; therefore the study is far from over, because of the importance of checking, in the future, the progress (or regress) of judicial offices along this path and to consider the need to create a specific model for these public entities.

The Efficiency and Demands of the Italian Justice System

A well-functioning judicial system is necessary for enforcing contracts and guaranteeing security of property rights. In fact, a good judicial system could reduce transaction costs and limit opportunistic behaviour, thus promoting growth through increasing specialization and innovation, developing financial and credit markets and promoting competition. What, then, are the causes of lengthy trials in Italy? We can identify at least four: free negotiation of lawyers’ fees; poor quality regulation; no implementation of ad hoc policy measures; host bureaucratic delays. It is well-known that pollution (recurrent changes in the rules and fragmented and slow courses of action) as well as considerable modifications in the law occur in Italy and this may consequently affect the demand for justice. As Gravelle (1990) states, “the demand for trials until the number of trials demanded by litigants is equal to the capacity of courts” (p. 255). The high level of Italian litigiousness could therefore derive from a disproportionate dimension and lack of transparency in the regulatory framework, the mutability of legal parameters, and the large number of lawyers, all of which submerge the courts. There are five actors who are interested in the duration of litigation, i.e. the two parties, their lawyers and the judge. Three of them have an interest in prolonging the process, one (the judge) is a neutral spectator, and the plaintiff is the only one who would gain from concluding the process in as short a time as possible. The quality of this service, which elsewhere is marked by the rapidity of court cases and procedures, is connected with the level of public resources necessary for managing this public service and the results obtained. In Italy the number of judges paid from public expenditure is in line with European levels. However, when compared to European systems, Italian justice is slower and less efficient.

Incarcerated Foreign Minors in Italy: How to Treat them?

The aim of this study is to provide data regarding the treatment of foreign juveniles in the Italian justice system. The authors examined the records from juvenile detention centers and primary juvenile reception centers in Italy in order to gain a better understanding of how foreign minors are treated with respect to their Italian counterparts. Statistical analysis was then carried out and the results revealed many inequalities. The authors believe that it is important to create secondary and tertiary prevention services in order to decrease the likelihood of recidivism, and to promote the minor’s integration into the social fabric of their adopted country. Foreign minors are more frequently placed in jail than their Italian counterparts. The authors conclude that only through the development of a united partnership can a welcoming network be created: one that is able to pick up on the first signs of trouble that often confront foreign minors.

(En)gendering Testimonial Bodies of Evidence and Italian Antimafia Culture: Rita Atria

Designed to provide a critical perspective on problems raised by cultural representations of the collaboratrice con la giustizia, this exploratory study examines the case of Rita Atria. Raised in a family structured by Mafia practices, at seventeen years of age she became a witness for the Italian justice system. Following her death nine months later, Rita Atria's name was crafted as a symbol of female rebellion against the Mafia and the heroic struggle for truth and justice, in works of literature and film, as well as feminist initiatives. Shifting focus to the self-disclosures that Rita Atria committed to her diary, a recipient for her intimate testimony, my readings elaborate a model of identity reformation conceived as an ongoing process marked by vicissitudes, ambivalence, and trauma. This position is supported by analyses of the witness's changing articulations of self as both the subject of desires and actions and subject to conflicting sets of laws, prohibitions, bonds of affection and possibilities determined by the Mafia and by civil society. Of central concern are the ways Mafia codes of conduct may figure in the formation of psychic structures, and thus also in the psychological repercussions of breaking such codes by becoming a collaboratrice con la giustizia.

Scrutiny: Trial Within a Reasonable Time: The Recent Reforms of the Italian Justice System in Response to the Conflict with Article 6(1) of the ECHR

Scrutiny: Trial Within a Reasonable Time: The Recent Reforms of the Italian Justice System in Response to the Conflict with Article 6(1) of the ECHR