JUDGMENT NO. 162

YEAR 2025

ITALIAN REPUBLIC

IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

composed of:

President: Giovanni AMOROSO;

Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,

has pronounced the following

JUDGMENT

in the constitutional legitimacy review concerning Article 14, paragraph 3, of Decree-Law of 28 January 2019, no. 4 (Urgent provisions regarding citizenship income and pensions), converted, with amendments, into Law of 28 March 2019, no. 26, initiated by the Ordinary Court of Ravenna, acting as a Labour Judge, in the proceedings between D. F. and the National Institute for Social Security (INPS), with an order dated 27 January 2025, registered under no. 30 of the register of orders for 2025 and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic no. 9, special series first, of 2025.

Having examined the statements of appearance of D. F., of INPS, as well as the statement of intervention of the President of the Council of Ministers;

Having heard the Reporting Judge Antonella Sciarrone Alibrandi at the public hearing of 23 September 2025;

Having heard the attorneys Amos Andreoni for D. F., Antonella Patteri for INPS, and the State Attorney Pietro Garofoli for the President of the Council of Ministers;

Deliberated in the council chamber on 24 September 2025.

Facts Considered

1.– By order of 27 January 2025, registered under no. 30 of the register of orders for 2025, the Ordinary Court of Ravenna, acting as a Labour Judge, raised questions of constitutional legitimacy regarding Article 14, paragraph 3, of Decree-Law of 28 January 2019, no. 4 (Urgent provisions regarding citizenship income and pensions), converted, with amendments, into Law of 28 March 2019, no. 26, in reference to Articles 2, 3—the latter concerning the principles of reasonableness and proportionality—38, second paragraph, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 1 of the Additional Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights.

The challenges are directed against the aforementioned provision insofar as it—by prohibiting the cumulation of the early retirement pension accrued under the so-called "Quota 100” scheme with income from dependent or self-employment work, during the period between the first day the early pension becomes effective and the accrual of the requirements for access to the old-age pension—results, as interpreted by the Court of Cassation, Labour Section, Judgment of 4 December 2024, no. 30994, in the suspension of the pension payment for an entire year, even where work as an employee has been performed for very limited periods (even for one or a few days per year) and for negligible income.

1.1.– The referring court must rule on the claim filed by a "Quota 100” pensioner, who has been receiving the said pension treatment since 1 November 2019 and who subsequently entered into a fixed-term employment contract (with an agricultural company) for the harvesting of grapes between 15 September 2020 and 30 September 2020. However, the employment relationship lasted for only one day, equal to eight hours of work, and the income actually received by the claimant amounted to a total of EUR 83.91 gross. By a provision of 9 September 2021, INPS notified the claimant of "the establishment of an undue payment of EUR 23,949.05,” as "sums not due on the pension” for the entire year 2020.

In the proceedings a quo, the pensioner requested, primarily and after ascertaining the nature of the activity performed as occasional self-employment (and not dependent employment): (a) a declaration of illegitimacy of the deduction of EUR 23,949.05, made by INPS as undue payment, for the alleged violation of the aforementioned cumulation prohibition; (b) consequently, an order for INPS to repay the entire sum.

Alternatively, the claimant requested the repayment of the sum deducted as undue payment, net of the amount of EUR 83.91 received as compensation for the activity performed, or, further alternatively, the amount of EUR 2,021.56, corresponding to the net monthly pension instalment received in the period under consideration.

The Court of Ravenna deems it unable to reclassify the employment relationship as self-employment (rather than dependent employment), given that, as emerged from the investigation, the formal elements—unanimously adopted by the parties upon the commencement of the employment relationship—would prevail over the scant and non-conclusive substantial elements adduced to support such reclassification. It therefore affirms that the income received falls under the cumulation prohibition set forth in Article 14, paragraph 3, of Decree-Law no. 4 of 2019, as converted.

However, it doubts that the consequence attached by the aforementioned judgment of the Court of Cassation no. 30994 of 2024 to the violation of this prohibition—corresponding to the loss of the pension treatment for an entire year—is compatible with the Constitution.

1.2.– This provision would, firstly, conflict with the principles of reasonableness and proportionality under Article 3 of the Constitution.

The challenged norm, in fact, in the presence of even minimal employment income completely inadequate for the sustenance of the worker-pensioner, as in the present case, would establish a consequence for the violation of the cumulation prohibition that is manifestly disproportionate, to the point of entirely compromising the individual’s subsistence.

This provision would also be unreasonable.

Considering that one of the purposes of the legislation on "Quota 100” early retirement is generational turnover in dependent employment, this purpose would not be ensured by the challenged provision, since a work performance limited to a few days in a calendar year, due to its nature and its temporal and economic scantiness, could not affect labour market dynamics. Indeed, only during the period actually covered by the employment relationship could the pensioner be held accountable for having deprived another worker of employment or, in any case, for accumulating income and pension. Instead, the reference made by the Court of Cassation to the entire year, besides being textually unsupported, would also be devoid of reasonableness, considering that primary legislation itself identifies the payment of the pension as an obligation lasting for monthly periods.

Even if the measure of withdrawal identified by the Court of Cassation were to be considered a true penalty for the pensioner’s conduct, the referring court believes that the principles of reasonableness and proportionality are still violated, given the lack of strict causal and logical consequence between the violation of the cumulation rule and its extreme consequence, as well as the manifest disproportion between the income received and the penalty imposed. Considering that the principles of proportionality and reasonableness inform the entire system, the characterisation of the mechanism in question as a penalty or as a mere legal effect would not be decisive for resolving the constitutional legitimacy issue under examination.

A violation of Article 38, second paragraph, of the Constitution is also alleged.

The withdrawal of an entire year's pension, against the backdrop of limited working periods, often connected with the receipt of extremely modest, if not negligible, sums, would essentially result in depriving the insured, who is entitled to the benefit by having paid the necessary contributions, of social security protection. The acquired pension benefit would be nullified for an entire year, in contrast with a work activity limited to specific periods or, indeed, only a few days of work, thus being incapable of jeopardising the systemic objective of generational turnover. For "Quota 100” pensioners who have performed only minimal and partial dependent work, this would result in "the creation of a sort of ‘esodati’ [left behind workers] [...] deprived of the entire annual pension benefit, [...] without any means of subsistence or any dedicated social security instrument.”

Finally, a conflict with Article 1 of the Additional Protocol to the ECHR, via Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, is also found.

On this point, the referring court considers that—given the acquired right to the social security benefit is attributable to the concept of the right to a "possession” under the cited Article 1—the total withdrawal of this benefit for an entire year, caused by the performance of an, albeit incompatible, work activity, is disproportionate and unjustified, resulting in the violation of the right to the respect of one's possessions, as recognised by the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights.

The loss of the pension benefit, according to the described modalities and reasons, would make evident the violation of the pensioner’s right to the enjoyment of their possessions, which are moreover functional to meeting minimum living and even survival needs; from which also derives the violation of their dignity and thus of Article 2 of the Constitution, especially in the absence of reasons of public utility or general interest capable of justifying such a sacrifice.

1.3.– As regards relevance, the Court of Ravenna observes that the requested declaration of constitutional illegitimacy «would exclude the existence of almost the entirety of the INPS credit in question», since the undue payment concerning the claimant would be limited to the pension instalment received in September 2020, whereas the finding of non-substantiation of the raised issues would lead to the rejection of the claim.

As to the possibility of a constitutionally oriented interpretation of the challenged provision, the referring court notes that although the latter does not expressly provide for the consequences of violating the cumulation prohibition, the fact that the aforementioned judgment no. 30994 of 2024 of the Court of Cassation identified these consequences precisely as the total loss of the pension benefit, not only for the months during which the work activity was performed, but for the entire calendar year concerned, would relieve it of the burden of providing a different interpretation, deemed compliant with the Constitution (which, moreover, would invariably be overturned in appeal stages).

The referring court notes, in this regard, that «the Court of Cassation, Labour Section, when [it] rules for the first time on an issue, adopts a ruling endowed with internal stability and it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, that, in the absence of subsequent legislative elements, it will change its opinion», thus constituting "living law” ("diritto vivente”).

In any case—the Court further emphasizes—the aforementioned ruling of the Court of Cassation removes «scope for a constitutionally compliant interpretation» by the court of merit. According to the referring court, this presents the same situation considered by this Court in Judgment no. 208 of 2024, namely a situation where, although—due to the limited number of legitimacy rulings—the configuration of a "living law capable of being the subject of constitutional legitimacy review” is excluded, the Cassation Court’s thesis that it cannot reach a constitutionally compliant interpretation of the challenged provision, considered together with the demands for legal certainty, which are particularly acute in the procedural sector (as, according to the referring court, they are in the social security sector connected to subsistence issues), justified the adoption of a ruling of acceptance in order to ensure respect for the constitutional principles at stake.

1.4.– Having established the foregoing, the Court of Ravenna, after stressing that this Court has not yet ruled on the issues raised in the present proceedings—as Judgment no. 234 of 2022 concerned the different aspect of the differentiated regime of the cumulation prohibition between occasional self-employed workers and dependent employees—asserts that the desired invalidation of the rule established by "living law” requires identifying a time-based criterion (other than the annual one) for delimiting the effects of non-cumulation, a criterion that it finds in the monthly time dimension, corresponding to the reference instalment.

Considering that pensions are legally paid monthly, the referring court deems it natural that the cumulation rule should operate at a monthly level, depriving the pensioner only of the instalments in those months in which they accumulated income from dependent work and the "Quota 100” pension.

1.5.– In conclusion, the Court of Ravenna requests that Article 14, paragraph 3, of Decree-Law no. 4 of 2019, as converted, be declared unconstitutional in the part where—in the interpretation of the Court of Cassation—it establishes that «the violation of the prohibition on cumulating pension income and income from dependent work... results in the total loss of the pension benefit, not only for the months in which the work activity was performed, but for the entire calendar year concerned».

2.– The President of the Council of Ministers intervened in the proceedings, represented and defended by the State Attorney’s Office, requesting that the issues raised by the Court of Ravenna be declared inadmissible or, in any case, unfounded.

These issues would first be inadmissible as they are aimed at censuring not the provision in its textual and mandatory form, but the reading given to it by a single ruling of a simple section of the Court of Cassation, which cannot constitute "living law,” as it was not rendered by the United Sections and, therefore, is susceptible to «a jurisprudential revirement, or conflicts in the interpretation of norms even in the absence of "subsequent legislative elements”». The referring court, therefore, could well have adopted a constitutionally oriented interpretation of the norm.

On the merits, the issues would all be unfounded.

The cumulation prohibition established for the "Quota 100” pension—unlike what is provided for the seniority pension and the "ordinary” early retirement pension—would derive from the derogatory and contingent nature of the measure itself, specifically aimed at disincentivising dependent work after retirement, given the relevance of the costs borne by the social security system in granting these early exit channels from the world of work and the objective of generational turnover in the labour market.

The provision for the suspension of the pension for an entire year, as a consequence of violating the cumulation prohibition, would therefore not give rise to a disproportionate and unreasonable sacrifice, but would fit into the framework of an economic measure characterised by objective financial emergencies and aimed at freeing up jobs to favour employment and subsequent economic growth.

Furthermore, it would only impose on the pensioner a choice between suspending the pension benefit or renouncing the undertaking of a new employment relationship as a dependent of third parties, or occasional self-employment.

This measure, moreover, was already declared not disproportionate nor unreasonable in this Court's Judgment no. 234 of 2022.

The alleged violation of Article 1 of the Additional Protocol to the ECHR would also be unfounded, as there can be no talk in this case of an acquired pension right, but of a transitional regime to which the taxpayer has access, pending the fulfilment of the requirements for access to the old-age pension, optionally, upon the occurrence of certain requirements and precise conditions.

3.– INPS, as a party to the main proceedings, also entered an appearance and requested that the issues raised by the Court of Ravenna be declared inadmissible and, in any case, unfounded.

Preliminarily, the social security body deems the issues inadmissible as they are aimed at obtaining a manipulative intervention «entirely eccentric to the object of the incidental constitutional legitimacy review». In fact, it is requested not the mere invalidation of the challenged provision, but a rewriting thereof, aimed at substituting the interpretation assumed as living law.

On the merits, all issues would be unfounded.

First and foremost, the challenge regarding the violation of Article 3 of the Constitution under the profile of reasonableness and proportionality would be unfounded. The applicability of the rule establishing the non-cumulation of self-employment and dependent work income with the special early pension in question could not be considered conditional on the element, entirely extrinsic and even accidental, of performing a high or low number of working days, as the legislator has not provided for any quantitative relativisation or gradation of the non-cumulation between work income and pension.

Given that the rationality of the prohibition established by the challenged provision—also acknowledged by this Court in Judgment no. 234 of 2022—is connected, at the same time, to guaranteeing the sustainability of the social security system and generational turnover, the provision for the suspension of the pension benefit in case of violation of the aforementioned prohibition would be instrumental in pursuing these objectives. The performance of dependent work, concurrently with the pension benefit, would indeed constitute a factual element in contrast with the premise required by the legislator to enjoy this favourable pension treatment, namely the pensioner’s effective exit from the labour market.

Nor is the referring court’s observation correct regarding the inability of performing a few working days to influence labour market dynamics, since in the current context dependent work has taken on atypical forms, such that the activity of dependent workers is increasingly characterised by temporariness and precariousness.

Furthermore, INPS notes that—contrary to the referring court's assertion—the suspension of the pension benefit for the entire reference year finds textual support in the part of the challenged provision where the activity of occasional self-employment below the income threshold of EUR 5,000 per year is excluded from the non-cumulation rule.

The reference to the year in which the income is received, expressly indicated as the temporal criterion for defining the scope of the derogation from non-cumulation, should therefore be understood as operating, in a systematic reading, in every case where the existence of non-cumulation must be assessed.

In INPS’s view, moreover, this Court, already in Judgment no. 234 of 2022, established that there is no issue with the annual suspension of the pension for the year in which work income is received, even if of a modest amount.

The alleged violation of Article 38, second paragraph, of the Constitution would likewise be unfounded.

The full protection of Article 38 of the Constitution would be reserved for old-age benefits intended to meet the living needs of those who, upon reaching retirement age, are in a state of need resulting from the difficulty or impossibility of continuing to work beyond a certain age. Therefore, the provision for specific and special cases of early pensioning before reaching the retirement age is left to the discretionary assessment of the legislator, not constituting the subject of the aforementioned social security protection.

Finally, the challenge concerning the violation of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 1 of the Additional Protocol to the ECHR, would likewise be unfounded.

In fact, there has been no violation by third parties—the State or INPS—of the pensioner's assets. On the contrary, the pension was granted and paid regularly in the legally established amount, concerning which there has been no dispute whatsoever. The social security body specifies that the repayment of the instalments received by the pension holder occurs when the latter, by a choice that is entirely free, performs the action that renders its receipt unlawful.

4.– D. F., the claimant in the main proceedings, also entered an appearance in the proceedings and requests that all the constitutional legitimacy issues raised by the Court of Ravenna be accepted.

Reiterating the arguments already set out in the referral order supporting the unreasonableness and disproportionateness of suspending the social security benefit for an entire year, despite the perception of very limited work income, the party’s defence adds a further reason for the internal irrationality of the challenged norm, as interpreted by the Court of Cassation.

From the provision on non-cumulation contained in the challenged provision, the effects proper to incompatibility would be derived, with a clear internal contradiction in the hypothesis. While incompatibility would determine the alternativism between two legal institutes (between two concurrent pension benefits or between a pension benefit and concurrent work income) and would therefore entail the revocation of the benefit and the definitive loss of the treatment, non-cumulation would only determine the suspension of one treatment relative to the other and the neutralisation of the portions of the benefit paid limitedly to the period of coexistence of the two facts.

The party, therefore, believes that the notion of non-cumulation should be interpreted in its literal meaning, being part of a legislative context that has progressively liberalised the possibility of receiving income from work despite retirement, with regard to both old-age pensions and seniority pensions (reference is made in this regard to Article 19 of Decree-Law of 25 June 2008, no. 112, containing "Urgent provisions for economic development, simplification, competitiveness, stabilisation of public finance and tax equalization," converted, with amendments, into Law of 6 August 2008, no. 133).

The claimant’s defence recalls that this legislative choice was inspired by the need to combat undeclared work, according to a rationale that, even in the present case, deserves careful consideration, along with the intent to foster the expansion of the labour market. This is all the more true in cases involving small market sizes, such as the one brought to the attention of the court a quo, where the irregular performance of work could easily become an expedient to evade a restrictive interpretation such as that adopted by the "living law" of the Court of Cassation.

The challenges addressed to Article 14, paragraph 3, of Decree-Law no. 4 of 2019, as converted, in reference to Article 38, second paragraph, of the Constitution, would likewise be well-founded, mainly based on arguments overlapping with those developed in the referral order.

The objective of promoting generational turnover in the world of work, pursued by introducing "Quota 100” early retirement, could not justify the violation of the aforementioned constitutional parameter, which would occur if the subject who re-enters employment for a very short period were to remain without income and without a pension and even with the obligation to repay the pension instalments received before re-employment.

Moreover, the party’s defence notes the absence of a normative basis for INPS Circular no. 117 of 9 August 2019 ("Quota 100 Pension pursuant to Article 14 of Decree-Law of 28 January 2019, no. 4, converted, with amendments, by Law of 28 March 2019, no. 26. Clarifications on the non-cumulation of the pension with work income and on the assessment of periods of work performed abroad for the purpose of obtaining the same”), which—well before the oft-cited judgment no. 30994 of 2024 of the Court of Cassation—had already provided for the consequence of suspending the pension benefit for the entire year in which work was performed and income received, given that the reference legislation, where it mentions non-cumulation, does not identify any further parameter for quantifying the pension deduction to be made.

The principle of legitimate expectation under Article 3 of the Constitution would also be violated, considering that every pensioner, given the textual wording of the provision, could, at most, expect a monthly deduction from the pension coinciding with the work performed and certainly not an annual deduction.

Finally, the issue raised in reference to Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 1 of the Additional Protocol to the ECHR, would also be well-founded, based on the same arguments developed in the referral order.

5.– At the public hearing, the parties and the intervener insisted on the acceptance of the conclusions formulated in their written submissions.

Legal Considerations

1.– The Court of Ravenna, acting as a Labour Judge, by the order indicated in the heading (reg. ord. no. 30 of 2025) doubts the constitutional legitimacy of Article 14, paragraph 3, of Decree-Law no. 4 of 2019, as converted, insofar as—as interpreted by the Court of Cassation, Labour Section, in Judgment no. 30994 of 2024—it results in the suspension of the benefit payment for an entire year, and not only limitedly to the months of actual performance of dependent work activity, from the violation of the prohibition on cumulating the "Quota 100” early retirement pension with income from dependent or self-employment work, during the period between the first day the early pension becomes effective and the accrual of the requirements for access to the old-age pension, even when the latter occurs for very limited periods (for one or a few days per year) and for negligible income.

The referring court—called upon to rule on the alleged illegitimacy of the undue payment established by INPS against a holder of a "Quota 100” early retirement pension who, in violation of the cited cumulation prohibition, had carried out fixed-term dependent work activity for an agricultural company, for the harvesting of grapes, for a duration corresponding to one working day (eight hours) and for a total gross income of EUR 83.91—believes that the provision for the suspension of the pension benefit for an entire year is detrimental, first and foremost, to Article 3 of the Constitution, under the profile of proportionality and reasonableness.

Such a consequence of violating the cumulation prohibition would, in fact, be not only manifestly disproportionate, as capable of entirely compromising the individual's subsistence, but also unreasonable, as it would not be suitable for pursuing the main objective of the legislation on the early retirement in question, namely that of generational turnover in the labour market. A work performance limited to a few days (or even a single day) within a calendar year would be unsuitable, due to its nature and its temporal and economic scantiness, to affect the dynamics of that market.

The challenged provision would also be detrimental to Article 38, second paragraph, of the Constitution: the subject would, in fact, be deprived of social security protection for an entire year, against the performance of limited working periods, often much shorter than a year. Consequently, the pensioner's right to the enjoyment of their possessions, under Article 1 of the Additional Protocol to the ECHR, invoked via Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, would also be violated, in the absence of reasons of public utility or general interest capable of justifying its sacrifice, according to conventional jurisprudence. Considering that such possessions are functional to meeting minimum living and even survival needs, the violation of the cited right would also result in the violation of the pensioner's dignity and, through it, the violation of Article 2 of the Constitution.

2.– Preliminarily, the exception of inadmissibility raised by the State Attorney’s Office must be examined regarding the fact that the referring judge, while deeming a constitutionally oriented interpretation of the challenged provision possible, did not follow it, raising an issue of constitutional legitimacy of the same, based on the opposing reading given to it by a single ruling of the Labour Section of the Court of Cassation, erroneously deemed to be "living law” ("diritto vivente”).

3.– The exception is well-founded.

3.1.– The Court of Ravenna starts from the finding that the challenged provision does not expressly regulate the consequences of violating the cumulation prohibition between the "Quota 100” early retirement pension and the performance of work activity. In this regard, it notes that «the legislator could have regulated the case as it saw fit», provided that «within the limits», corresponding to the proportionality and reasonableness of the measure, as well as the pensioner's right to subsistence, but «did not do so».

However, the circumstance that the Court of Cassation, Labour Section, in Judgment no. 30994 of 2024, identified the aforementioned consequences precisely in the total loss of the pension benefit, not only for the months in which the work activity was performed, but for the entire calendar year concerned, would exempt it from the burden of providing an adequate interpretation, given "the existence of a living law”. The referring court specifies, in this regard, that when the Labour Section of the Court of Cassation "rules for the first time on an issue, it adopts a ruling endowed with internal stability and it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, that, in the absence of subsequent legislative elements, it will change its opinion”.

To this argument, the court a quo adds that the cited ruling, by expressly excluding the existence of a constitutional doubt regarding the norm in question, as interpreted by it, removes «scope for a constitutionally compliant interpretation» by the court of merit.

3.2.– To support the finding of inadmissibility, it is appropriate to briefly recall the conclusions reached over time by this Court regarding the obligation of the referring judge to interpret the challenged provisions, the fulfilment of which allows for an examination of the merits of the issues raised.

According to the now constant jurisprudence of this Court, "although it is true that laws are not declared constitutionally illegitimate ‘because it is possible to give them unconstitutional interpretations (and some judge deems to give them)’, this does not mean that ‘where it is improbable or difficult to propose a constitutionally oriented interpretation, the issue must not be examined on the merits’” (Judgment no. 42 of 2017; in the same sense, Judgment no. 83 of 2017)” (Judgment no. 77 of 2018). In particular, this occurs when the judge has plausibly motivated the impracticability of the constitutionally oriented interpretation of the challenged provision, consciously excluding it either due to the presence of a consolidated contrary jurisprudential orientation, which amounts to "living law”, or due to the literal wording of the challenged provision. In both the aforementioned hypotheses, "[t]he correctness or otherwise of the exegesis presupposed by the referring judge—and, more specifically, the possibility or impossibility of overcoming the obstacles adduced” to the aforementioned interpretation—"pertains [...] to the merits, that is, to the subsequent verification of the substantiation of the issue itself” (most recently, Judgment no. 204 of 2021)” (Judgment no. 219 of 2022).

More precisely, in the presence of a stable hermeneutic outcome of the jurisprudence of legitimacy—found not only in the presence of an interpretation provided by the United Sections of the Court of Cassation and subsequently established in the jurisprudence of legitimacy (Judgment no. 73 of 2024) but, more generally, in the face of a reiterated and consequently stable interpretation provided by the jurisprudence of legitimacy (Judgment no. 38 of 2024)—the court a quo has "the faculty to assume the challenged interpretation as living law and to request, on this basis, its review for compatibility with constitutional parameters (Judgment no. 243 of 2022)” (Judgment no. 73 of 2024). This is done "without being chargeable with not having followed another interpretation, more closely aligned with the parameters themselves” (Judgment no. 180 of 2021): the norm "now lives in the legal system so deeply rooted that a modification of the system without legislative intervention or that of this Court is hardly conceivable (Judgments no. 141 of 2019 and no. 191 of 2016)” (again, Judgment no. 73 of 2024).

In such a case, this Court "can only take note of the ‘living law,’ as it cannot substitute itself for the jurisprudence of legitimacy in interpreting legislative provisions, but its task is rather confined to verifying whether the result of such interpretation is compatible with the constitutional parameters invoked by the court a quo” (Judgment no. 116 of 2023).

Considering the significance assigned to the "consolidation” of the interpretation of the challenged provision offered by the jurisprudence of legitimacy, the verification of this consolidation, connected to the "repeated use over time” and the "degree of consensus gathered” (Judgment no. 38 of 2024), thus becomes central. Verification that, "especially in the absence of a final ruling by the United Sections” (again, Judgment no. 38 of 2024), is necessary to "verify whether rulings, although made by the Court of Cassation, can be regarded as expressive of that consolidated interpretation of the law which renders the norm, drawn from it, true ‘living law’ within and for the purposes of the constitutional legitimacy review, given that the ‘living nature’ of the norm constitutes ‘a process by definition open’” (Judgment no. 202 of 2023)” (again, Judgment no. 38 of 2024).

Furthermore, only if the literal wording of the challenged provision opposes, according to a non-implausible reasoning of the referring judge, an exegesis conducted according to the canons of constitutionally compliant interpretation, "the interpretative attempt must yield to the review of constitutional legitimacy” (Judgment no. 91 of 2013): in fact, the "literal element [...] constitutes the natural limit of the very duty of the judge to interpret the law in conformity with the Constitution (Judgments no. 102 of 2021, no. 253 of 2020, no. 174 of 2019 and no. 82 of 2017)” (Judgment no. 18 of 2022).

3.3.– Having established the foregoing, the arguments put forward by the Court of Ravenna to support the impracticability of the constitutionally oriented interpretation of Article 14, paragraph 3, of Decree-Law no. 4 of 2019, as converted, do not appear convincing.

Not with reference to the literal text, given that the referring judge himself notes the existence of a legislative gap in the cited Article 14, paragraph 3, regarding the provision of the consequences of the cumulation prohibition, and highlights that the legislator could well have filled it, provided, however, that it respected both the principles of proportionality and reasonableness, and the pensioner's right to subsistence. And it is the referring judge himself who considers that the constitutionally adequate interpretation of the examined provision, which he derives from the relevant normative context and, in particular, from the provision for the monthly payment of pension instalments, is not contradicted by the silence of the legislator, but rather well possible.

To support this practicability, the Court of Ravenna moreover assumes that—contrary to INPS’s assertion—this interpretation was not excluded by Judgment no. 234 of 2022, by which this Court, called upon to rule on the same provision under examination, but with reference to the different aspect concerning the scope of the cumulation prohibition, rejected, due to the heterogeneity of the compared hypotheses, the request to extend the derogation from non-cumulation provided for occasional self-employment income up to 5,000 euros per year to intermittent dependent work income.

The only obstacle indicated by the referring judge therefore lies in the cited Judgment no. 30994 of 2024, which identified the consequences of violating the cumulation prohibition under the cited Article 14, paragraph 3, in the total loss of the pension benefit, not only for the months in which the work activity was performed, but for the entire calendar year concerned.

This judgment, however, has remained unique so far in the jurisprudence of legitimacy, also because it was adopted very recently. Moreover, it appears not to have had a generalised follow-up by the courts of merit, given that it was followed by some rulings (among others, Court of Appeal of Milan, Labour Section, Judgment of 7 August 2025, no. 629; Court of Appeal of Bologna, Labour Section, Judgment of 16 June 2025, no. 311), but others are found that have disregarded it, expressing a different trend (among others, Court of Appeal of Brescia, Labour Section, Judgment of 15 April 2025, no. 81; Court of Appeal of Trento, Labour Section, Judgment of 20 March 2025, no. 14), in some cases in line with the interpretation proposed by the current referring judge.

It is therefore evident that the requirements of reiteration and stability that this Court has repeatedly deemed necessary to confer upon the interpretative orientation expressed by the jurisprudence of legitimacy a degree of consolidation such as to reveal its rooting in the legal system (among others, Judgments no. 101 of 2023 and no. 122 of 2017) and to elevate it truly to "living law,” so as to induce the judge who perceives its possible conflict with the Constitution to refer this Court and to induce this Court to rule on it, are not met in this case.

The referring judge himself, moreover, ends up acknowledging that the legitimacy ruling cited as an obstacle to the constitutionally oriented interpretation is not "living law,” by referring to Judgment no. 208 of 2024, which held that two legitimacy rulings, due to their limited number and the short time frame in which they were adopted, did not constitute the elements of a "living law capable of being the subject of constitutional legitimacy review.”

Nevertheless, the referring judge finds, as already stated, an obstacle to the constitutionally oriented interpretation precisely in the cited single ruling of the Labour Section of the Court of Cassation adopted so far on the matter and in the norm deduced therefrom from Article 14, paragraph 3, of Decree-Law no. 4 of 2019, as converted; a ruling which is still susceptible, according to ordinary jurisprudential dynamics, to being confirmed, as well as to being subject to a revirement, and therefore not classifiable as already "living” in this form in the legal system.

The referring judge can therefore—and must—proceed with the interpretation of the challenged provision by confronting the cited jurisprudential precedent, which, however, does not establish a situation of "living law.”

4.– In conclusion, the constitutional legitimacy issues of Article 14, paragraph 3, of Decree-Law no. 4 of 2019, as converted, raised by the Court of Ravenna, must be declared inadmissible, as the latter has not correctly fulfilled the obligation of prior interpretation of the challenged provision.

for these reasons

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

declares inadmissible the questions of constitutional legitimacy of Article 14, paragraph 3, of Decree-Law of 28 January 2019, no. 4 (Urgent provisions regarding citizenship income and pensions), converted, with amendments, into Law of 28 March 2019, no. 26, raised, in reference to Articles 2, 3, the latter under the profile of the principles of reasonableness and proportionality, 38, second paragraph, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 1 of the Additional Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, by the Ordinary Court of Ravenna, acting as a Labour Judge, with the order indicated in the heading.

Decided in Rome, at the seat of the Constitutional Court, Palazzo della Consulta, on 24 September 2025.

Signed:

Giovanni AMOROSO, President

Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Rapporteur

Roberto MILANA, Head of the Registry

Filed in the Registry on 4 November 2025