JUDGMENT NO. 37

YEAR 2026

ITALIAN REPUBLIC

IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

composed of:

President: Giovanni AMOROSO;

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

JUDGMENT

in the constitutional legitimacy proceedings concerning art. 6, paragraph 1, third period, of Decree-Law of 6 December 2011, n. 201 (Urgent provisions for growth, equity, and consolidation of public finances), converted, with amendments, into Law of 22 December 2011, n. 214, initiated by the Court of Accounts, Jurisdictional Section for the Campania Region, in single-judge composition, with two orders of 7 April 2025, respectively registered under numbers 100 and 101 of the register of orders for 2025 and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic n. 23, first special series, of 2025.

Having seen the statements of constitution by the National Social Insurance Institute (INPS) and M. D.S.;

Having seen the intervention statements by the Attorney General of the Court of Accounts and the President of the Council of Ministers;

Heard Judge Rapporteur Antonella Sciarrone Alibrandi in the public hearing of 14 January 2026;

Heard the attorneys Rino Lucadamo for M. D.S., Sergio Preden for INPS, as well as the State Attorney Pietro Garofoli for the President of the Council of Ministers;

Deliberated in the council chamber on 14 January 2026.

Facts Considered

1.– With two orders of 7 April 2025, of identical content, respectively registered as numbers 100 and 101 of the register of orders for 2025, the Court of Accounts, Jurisdictional Section for the Campania Region, in single-judge composition, raised a question of constitutional legitimacy concerning art. 6, paragraph 1, third period, of Decree-Law of 6 December 2011, n. 201 (Urgent provisions for growth, equity, and consolidation of public finances), converted, with amendments, into Law of 22 December 2011, n. 214, in reference to art. 3 of the Constitution.

The aforementioned provision repealed the institution of the privileged pension – in addition to those concerning the ascertainment of service-related injury, reimbursement of hospitalization expenses due to service, and fair compensation (paragraph 1, first period) – excluding, however, from its scope of application the "personnel belonging to the security, defense, fire-fighting, and public rescue sectors" (second period), and further excluding from the immediate effect of the repeal "proceedings pending on the date of entry into force of this Decree, [...] [those] proceedings for which the deadline for submission of the application has not yet expired on the aforementioned date, as well as [those] proceedings that may be initiated ex officio for events that occurred before the aforementioned date" (third period).

The rule is challenged by the referring court in the part where it did not include, among the exempted cases, that of proceedings aimed at recognizing the privileged pension benefit, for which the deadline for submitting the application had not yet begun to run on the date of entry into force of Decree-Law n. 201 of 2011.

2.– With the order registered under no. 100 of the register of orders for 2025, the referring Regional Section states that it must decide upon the appeal filed by M. D.S. – a former employee of the National Labour Inspectorate who suffered an accident in 2000 resulting in an infirmity, attributable to the eighth category, recognized as service-related in 2004 – seeking the attainment of a privileged pension. The relevant application was submitted by the appellant upon retirement, at the end of 2019, and rejected by the National Social Insurance Institute (INPS) on the grounds of the repeal of the pension benefit ordered by art. 6 of Decree-Law n. 201 of 2011, as converted.

Having stated the above, the referring court, firstly, excludes the occurrence of one of the derogating hypotheses provided for by the challenged provision itself: the appellant did not fall within one of the sectors exempted from the repeal, nor was there a pending proceeding, on the date of entry into force of Decree-Law n. 201 of 2011, aimed at recognizing the privileged pension, nor had the deadline for submitting the relevant application begun to run – which, pursuant to art. 169 of Presidential Decree of 29 December 1973, n. 1092 (Approval of the consolidated text of rules on the retirement treatment of civil and military State employees), must be submitted within five, or ten, years from the cessation of service – nor were there the prerequisites for a proceeding to be initiated ex officio, pursuant to art. 167 of the same Presidential Decree.

The referring court further observes that the exceptions mentioned in the third period of art. 6 of Decree-Law n. 201 of 2011, as converted, are all characterized by the factual element of the "temporal placement of the aetiologically relevant event, on a date prior to the amendment," as well as by the same ratio legis, namely that, concerning said event, the interested party "held a true and vested right" which "could not be abruptly extinguished, with substantially retroactive effect."

Moreover, the referring Section excludes that the case under its review is "assimilable to that in which there is a pending proceeding," since, according to the "constant jurisprudential interpretation to which the value of 'living law' must be attached," the aforementioned hypotheses presuppose that the cessation of service occurred before the entry into force of the amendment (a circumstance, precisely, not met by the appellant, who only retired in 2019, albeit with an infirmity aetiologically traceable to an event dating back to an earlier date).

For the referring court, therefore, in light of the aforementioned ratio legis, the exclusion of the case under review from those exempted from the repealing effect concerning the institution of the privileged pension would be "unjustified and irrational," resulting in, "similarly to the situation addressed by the Constitutional Court in judgment no. 13/2024, '... the unreasonable consequence of denying the right to one who has accrued the constituent prerequisites thereof based on a factor...'," such as cessation of service, " '... which escapes their sphere of control and is not related to the constituent reasons for the right itself' ".

Finally, as to the relevance of the question, the referring Regional Section notes that, given the timeliness of the application submitted by the appellant to obtain the privileged pension, the only preclusion to its acceptance would be the "challenged omission to provide for the further exception in this regard"; it deems, moreover, that the preliminary issues raised by the respondent administrations in the proceedings below are not an obstacle, and lastly observes that the specific aspect underlying the present constitutional legitimacy question differs "clearly" from the aspects already examined by this Court in Judgment no. 20 of 2018.

2.1.– M. D.S. appeared in the proceedings, requesting a declaration of constitutional illegitimacy of art. 6, paragraph 1, third period, of Decree-Law n. 201 of 2011, as converted, and, in the alternative, a preliminary referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union "on the interpretation of the principles of non-discrimination and protection of legitimate expectations, also in light of the ECHR."

In the view of the party – which argued for the irrationality and disparity of treatment allegedly inherent in the interpretation of the provision in question adopted by living law – the violation of art. 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, with reference to the constraints arising from the European Union legal order and international obligations, would also subsist, particularly concerning arts. 7 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as "[t]he failure to recognize the privileged pension in analogous situations constitutes a violation of the principle of protection of legitimate expectations, as well as the principles of good administration, also in light of Union and conventional law."

2.2.– INPS also appeared in the proceedings, requesting that the question be declared unfounded.

According to the Institute, the factual scenarios compared by the referring court would not be comparable or homogeneous: those outlined in the third period of art. 6, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law n. 201 of 2011, as converted, would, in fact, be characterized by the cessation of the employment relationship having already occurred by the date of entry into force of the Decree-Law, and thus by the accrual of the right to the privileged pension prior to the normative intervention in question; conversely, in the factual scenario underlying the proceedings below, the right to the pension benefit had not yet arisen, given the pendency of the employment relationship on the date of repeal of the benefit.

In INPS's view, therefore, this substantial difference justifies the different treatment established by the legislator "in the exercise of the broad discretion it possesses in regulating the transition from one system to another." Moreover, for the Institute, the criterion adopted by the legislator, besides being reasonable, is consistent with the expenditure saving needs that inspired the reforms concerning social security, within which Decree-Law n. 201 of 2011, as converted, falls. Conversely, upholding the question as desired by the referring court "would render the quantification of the protected group uncertain and unduly extend the time necessary for the definitive transition to the new system."

2.3.– The Attorney General of the Court of Accounts filed an intervention statement, first setting out the reasons for the admissibility of his initiative within the present constitutional legitimacy proceedings and then arguing, on the merits, for the dismissal of the question.

2.4.– The President of the Council of Ministers intervened in the proceedings, represented and defended by the State Attorney's Office, requesting that the question be declared unfounded.

The State defense in particular highlighted that, on the date of entry into force of Decree-Law n. 201 of 2011, the prerequisite of cessation of service – the condition underlying the special retirement benefit institution, as recognized by the already cited ruling of this Court no. 20 of 2018 – had not yet occurred for the appellant in the proceedings below. Consequently, for the intervenor, the reference made by the referring Regional Section to Judgment no. 13 of 2024 – by which this Court declared the constitutional illegitimacy of art. 1801 of Legislative Decree of 15 March 2010, n. 66 (Code of Military Organization) – would not be pertinent, as the right to the privileged pension, although presupposing an injury sustained due to service, "perfects only upon the submission of the relevant application," without which, therefore, the right cannot be exercised. The State defense then excluded any aspect of constitutional illegitimacy in the exercise of discretion by the legislator.

2.5.– Close to the hearing, the private party and the State Attorney's Office filed defense briefs insisting on the arguments already presented in the previous written submissions.

3.– With the order registered under no. 101 of the register of orders for 2025, the referring Section states that it must decide upon the appeal filed by R. M. – a former employee of the Ministry of Defence who was recognized, between 2001 and 2004, as having service-related infirmities attributable to the eighth category – in order to obtain the attribution of the privileged pension. The relevant request, advanced in August 2021, subsequent to retirement, was rejected by INPS on the grounds of the appellant not belonging to the category of personnel exempted from the repeal of the institution in question.

The referring court, after excluding the appellant's belonging to the defense sector personnel – characterized by the performance of "essentially military duties," which R. M.'s duties at the time, falling within the civil personnel ranks of the Ministry of Defence, were not – inferred the relevance and non-manifest groundlessness of the constitutional legitimacy question, based on the same considerations set out in the order registered under no. 100 of the register of orders for 2025.

3.1.– INPS also appeared in this proceeding, requesting that the question raised by the Regional Section of the Court of Accounts be declared unfounded based on the same arguments presented in the previous proceeding.

3.2.– The President of the Council of Ministers also intervened in the proceedings, represented and defended by the State Attorney's Office, also in support of the non-groundlessness of the constitutional legitimacy question.

3.3.– Likewise, the Attorney General of the Court of Accounts intervened, arguing for the non-groundlessness of the question, subject to a declaration of admissibility of his intervention.

Considered in Law

4.– With two orders of identical content (register of orders nos. 100 and 101 of 2025), the Court of Accounts, Jurisdictional Section for the Campania Region, in single-judge composition, doubts, with reference to art. 3 of the Constitution, the constitutional legitimacy of art. 6, paragraph 1, third period, of Decree-Law n. 201 of 2011, as converted, in the part where it does not include, among the cases in which the transitional discipline excludes the immediate effect of the repeal of the privileged pension institution, the hypothesis of proceedings aimed at recognizing such benefit, for which the deadline for submitting the relevant application had not yet begun to run on the date of entry into force of the Decree-Law itself.

The aforementioned art. 6, paragraph 1, first period, ordered the repeal of the institution of the privileged pension – alongside that concerning the ascertainment of service-related injury, reimbursement of hospitalization expenses due to service, and fair compensation – establishing, nevertheless, that this repeal shall not apply "to personnel belonging to the security, defense, fire-fighting, and public rescue sectors" (second period), nor with reference "to proceedings pending on the date of entry into force of this Decree, as well as to proceedings for which, on the aforementioned date, the deadline for the submission of the application has not yet expired, as well as to proceedings that may be initiated ex officio for events occurred before the aforementioned date" (third period).

In both proceedings below, the referring Regional Section is called upon to decide on the appeal aimed at obtaining the privileged pension, filed by former employees who, despite having suffered a damaging event and having obtained recognition of the service relation prior to the entry into force of the repealing rule, were retired after that date, submitting the application for recognition of the privileged pension benefit only then.

In the view of the referring court, the exclusion of the factual scenario under its review from the scope of the third period of the challenged provision would contrast with art. 3 of the Constitution, under the aspect of reasonableness, in light of the ratio underlying the challenged norm itself, which consists in the fact that, with reference to an accident that occurred before the repeal of the pension institution, there is a "vested right" of the interested party that cannot be "abruptly extinguished."

5.– Preliminarily, the two referred proceedings may be joined due to identity of subject matter, to be decided by a single judgment.

6.– Still on procedural grounds, no obstacles are found regarding the relevance of the question.

In both orders of referral, the referring court affirms that the "challenged omission to provide for the further exception in this regard wholly precludes the acceptance of the claimant's application, aimed precisely at obtaining that pension."

In the order registered under no. 100 of the register of orders for 2025, the referring Section further affirms that the preliminary issues of lack of jurisdiction and lack of standing, raised by the respondent administrations in the proceedings below, "even if they prove to be well-founded, appear unsuitable to fully resolve the present proceedings."

This is sufficient, in light of the constant constitutional jurisprudence (among many others, Judgment no. 137 of 2025), to overcome this Court's preliminary review regarding the requirement of relevance, thus rendering the proposed question of constitutional legitimacy admissible.

7.– It must also be noted that the private party, constituted in the proceeding initiated by the order registered under no. 100 of the register of orders for 2025, in joining the request for acceptance of the question as raised by the referring Section, alleged a further aspect of constitutional illegitimacy relating to the violation of art. 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to arts. 7 and 14 of the ECHR.

However, as this Court has frequently affirmed, the parties in the proceedings below, constituted in the incidental proceedings, cannot supplement the constitutional parameters or expand the thema decidendum as set out in the order of referral (among many others, Judgment no. 115 of 2025).

8.– Finally, the intervention of the Attorney General of the Court of Accounts in the proceedings under review must be declared inadmissible, based on constant constitutional jurisprudence (most recently, Judgment no. 174 of 2025 and the attached order).

9.– On the merits, the question is unfounded.

9.1.– As this Court has already recognized, the privileged pension "is a social security institution that grants a special retirement treatment and therefore presupposes the cessation of the employment relationship" (Judgment no. 428 of 1993). It "acts as 'a sort of "reparation"' for personal harm attributable to the service rendered" (Judgment no. 20 of 2018).

The right to a privileged pension, although a consequence of a harmful event (wounds, injuries, infirmity) related to service, does not therefore arise from the mere recognition of the aetiological link, but rather the interested party must have ceased service in order to submit the relevant application, which must be submitted within five years of the cessation of the employment relationship (art. 169 of Presidential Decree no. 1092 of 1973, which also provides for a ten-year term if the disability resulted from Parkinsonism).

In this regard, the accounting jurisprudence has repeatedly affirmed that "the right to a pension, in cases where there has been no cessation of service, has not even arisen" (among others, Court of Accounts, Jurisdictional Section of Appeal for the Sicilian Region, Judgment 3 November 2023, no. 56/A).

9.2.– In this context, art. 6 of Decree-Law n. 201 of 2011, as converted – which is part of a broader plan for containing public expenditure pursued by the legislator in social security matters – intervened to limit the pool of beneficiaries of the privileged pension treatment, eliminating it for the general body of public employees. This repeal exempted only personnel belonging to the security, defense, fire-fighting, and public rescue sectors, due to the higher risk ordinarily associated with service in these sectors, as well as the exclusion of the personnel in question from the insurance coverage against work accidents provided by the National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work (INAIL) (most recently, Judgment no. 207 of 2024).

9.3.– The legislator also provided for a transitional discipline that excluded the immediate effect of the repeal for: a) proceedings pending on the date of entry into force of Decree-Law n. 201 of 2011; b) proceedings for which, on the aforementioned date, the deadline for submitting the application for recognition of the pension benefit had not yet expired; c) proceedings that may be initiated ex officio for events occurring before the date of entry into force of the same Decree-Law (art. 6, paragraph 1, third period, of Decree-Law no. 211 of 2001, as converted).

According to established accounting jurisprudence, the aforementioned factual scenarios are "exhaustive hypotheses contemplated by the normative source to safeguard rights already acquired or acquirable in the presence of specific conditions" (among others, most recently, see Court of Accounts, Jurisdictional Section for the Sardinian Region, Judgment 13 March 2024, no. 51) and "all concern the case where cessation of service occurred before the entry into force of the same. [...] Where, instead, cessation occurs later, it cannot be considered to fall within the scope of application of the safeguard provisions, as the right cannot arise in a normative framework that no longer provides for it" (Court of Accounts, Jurisdictional Section of Appeal for the Sicilian Region, Judgment 9 February 2017, no. 26).

10.– In light of the above, the assumption from which the referring court proceeds concerning the substantial overlap between the case under review – in which, the fact of cessation of service occurring after the repeal of the institution being undisputed, according to the accounting jurisprudence itself there is no vested right to the privileged pension – and those provided for by the transitional discipline set out in the third period of art. 6, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law n. 201 of 2011, as converted, cannot be shared.

10.1.– These latter, in fact, all presuppose the cessation of service having occurred before the entry into force of the Decree-Law, and refer to rights already acquired (supra, hypothesis sub a, when the application for recognition of the privileged pension had already been submitted at the time of the amendment) or that can be acquired with the submission of the application (supra, hypothesis sub b, when the relevant time bar, running from the cessation of the employment relationship, was still pending at the time of the amendment) or, again, to benefits liquidated ex officio by the administration itself pursuant to art. 167 of Presidential Decree no. 1092 of 1973 (supra, hypothesis sub c, when the employee had ceased service due to infirmities or injuries recognized as service-related).

10.2.– In the factual scenario under review, however, there is no acquired or acquirable right.

In fact, as consistently highlighted by accounting jurisprudence, "where the perfection of the constituent elements of the right to a pension [– i.e., the service-related injury and cessation of service –] occurs at a time subsequent to the repeal […], no right to the privileged benefit can be deemed to have ever matured in favor of the interested party" (Court of Accounts, Second Central Section of Appeal, Judgment 17 May 2024, no. 125).

10.3.– It follows, therefore, that, outside the transitional discipline, "aimed at safeguarding expectations worthy of protection" (Judgment no. 20 of 2018) because, as stated, pertaining to rights already acquired or acquirable, it is not possible to configure a right to the privileged pension within a normative framework where that pension treatment is repealed.

11.– In light of the considerations set forth above, the alleged irrationality of not including the case under review within the scope of the third period of art. 6, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law n. 201 of 2011, as converted, is therefore excluded, given that the clear difference between the case under scrutiny and the factual scenarios covered by the transitional discipline excludes the recurrence of the same ratio legis underlying the rule that the referring court seeks to extend also to the case submitted to its examination.

12.– Based on the latter considerations, the reference made by the referring court to Judgment no. 13 of 2024 is also irrelevant.

With that ruling, this Court declared the constitutional illegitimacy of art. 1801 of the Military Organisation Code insofar as it conditioned "the attribution of the benefit on the recognition of the infirmity while the employment relationship was ongoing, rather than on the fact of its onset during service." In the situation then examined, unlike the present one, the right to the supplementary salary benefit had, in fact, already accrued to the military member as a consequence of the injury sustained due to service, and did not depend on the circumstance that the recognition of the aetiological link occurred while in service. In this context, that circumstance therefore proved to be "an extraneous and dissonant element," which could not condition the existence of the right.

12.1.– The opposite occurs for the institution of the privileged pension, in which the element of cessation of service is not extraneous to the perfection of the right, but rather a prerequisite for the constitutive factual scenario itself.

13.– Finally, it should be observed that in Judgment no. 20 of 2018, this Court excluded that the elimination of the privileged pension, "carried out as part of a gradual harmonization plan," in the exercise of the broad discretion enjoyed by the legislator in regulating the transition from one system to another, contradicts the principle of reasonableness, " 'system principle,' called to guide [legislative] choices in social security matters."

In this light, in fact, extending the derogating system in question also to situations of mere factual expectation, as desired by the referring court, would lead to the indefinite extension of the deadline for the definition of privileged pension applications, rendering uncertain the quantification of the protected group and unduly extending the time necessary for the definitive transition to the new system, which the legislator intended to reasonably structure "according to a gradual path" (Judgment no. 20 of 2018).

for these reasons

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

having joined the proceedings,

1) declares the constitutional legitimacy question concerning art. 6, paragraph 1, third period, of Decree-Law of 6 December 2011, n. 201 (Urgent provisions for growth, equity, and consolidation of public finances), converted, with amendments, into Law of 22 December 2011, n. 214, raised, in reference to art. 3 of the Constitution, by the Court of Accounts, Jurisdictional Section for the Campania Region, in single-judge composition, with the orders in the heading, **unfounded**;

2) declares the intervention lodged by the Attorney General of the Court of Accounts **inadmissible**.

Decided in Rome, at the seat of the Constitutional Court, Palazzo della Consulta, on 14 January 2026.

Signed:

Giovanni AMOROSO, President

Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Rapporteur

Valeria EMMA, Chancellor

Filed in the Registry on 23 March 2026

 

The anonymized version conforms, in text, to the original