JUDGMENT NO. 39

YEAR 2026

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, Massimo LUCIANI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
has pronounced the following

JUDGMENT

in the constitutional legitimacy reviews of Article 23-quater of Decree-Law of October 28, 2020, no. 137 (Further urgent measures regarding health protection, support for workers and businesses, justice, and security, connected to the COVID-19 epidemiological emergency), converted, with amendments, into Law of December 18, 2020, no. 176, initiated by the Court of Audit, joint sections in jurisdictional session in special composition, with two orders of March 21, 2025, two orders of November 13, 2025, and two orders of November 17 and 19, 2025, respectively registered under numbers 70 and 71 and from 240 to 243 of the register of orders for 2025 and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic numbers 17 and 48, first special series, of the year 2025.

Having seen the appearances of Autostrada del Brennero spa, Ferrovienord spa, and the Attorney General of the Court of Audit;

Having seen the interventions of the President of the Council of Ministers and the intervention of Ferrovienord spa;

Having heard in the public hearing of January 13, 2026, the Reporting Judge Luca Antonini;

Having heard the lawyers Damiano Florenzano for Autostrada del Brennero spa, Jacopo Polinari for Ferrovienord spa, Deputy Prosecutors Antongiulio Martina and Arturo Iadecola for the Attorney General of the Court of Audit, as well as the State Advocate Pietro Garofoli for the President of the Council of Ministers;

Deliberated in the Chamber of Council of January 13, 2026.

Facts of the Case

1.– With six orders registered under numbers 70, 71, 240, 241, 242, and 243 of the register of orders for 2025, the Court of Audit, joint sections in jurisdictional session in special composition, raises, in aggregate, questions of constitutional legitimacy regarding Article 23-quater, paragraphs 1 and 2, of Decree-Law of October 28, 2020, no. 137 (Further urgent measures regarding health protection, support for workers and businesses, justice, and security, connected to the COVID-19 epidemiological emergency), converted, with amendments, into Law of December 18, 2020, no. 176.

The contested paragraph 2 amended Article 11, paragraph 6, letter b), of Annex 1 to Legislative Decree of August 26, 2016, no. 174 (Code of Accounting Justice, adopted pursuant to Article 20 of Law of August 7, 2015, no. 124), by adding, after the words "carried out by ISTAT,” the following: ", solely for the purposes of applying the national legislation on the containment of public expenditure,” leading to the current wording of the aforementioned Article 11, which reads: "[T]he joint sections in special composition, in the exercise of their exclusive jurisdiction in matters of public accounting, decide in a single instance on judgments: […] b) concerning the recognition of public administrations carried out by ISTAT, solely for the purposes of applying the national legislation on the containment of public expenditure.”

1.1.– In the main proceedings, the Court of Audit is called upon to decide on the appeals filed by subjects listed in the list of public administrations included in the consolidated financial statements identified pursuant to Article 1, paragraph 3, of Law of December 31, 2009, no. 196 (Law on Public Accounting and Finance), of which the appellants seek annulment in the part classifying them as public administrations.

The referring Court notes that the invoked Article 23-quater allegedly limited the jurisdiction over the measures adopted by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), which was "expressly attributed to the Court of Audit by the legislator” with Article 1, paragraph 169, of Law of December 24, 2012, no. 228, concerning "Provisions for the formation of the annual and multi-year State budget (Stability Law 2013),” according to which "[A]gainst the acts of recognition of public administrations annually carried out by ISTAT pursuant to Article 1, paragraph 3, of Law of December 31, 2009, no. 196, an appeal is admissible to the joint sections of the Court of Audit, in special composition, pursuant to Article 103, second paragraph, of the Constitution”; a provision subsequently incorporated into Article 11, paragraph 6, letter b), of the Code of Accounting Justice.

As a result of the contested provision, the accounting judge would now be precluded from hearing disputes concerning the inclusion of an entity in the list of public administrations, drawn up by ISTAT, pursuant to Article 1, paragraphs 2 and 3, of Law no. 196 of 2009.

For all referring judges, the possibility of deciding on the requests for annulment submitted depends on the resolution of the doubt regarding the constitutional legitimacy of the amended wording of Article 11, paragraph 6, letter b), of the Code of Accounting Justice; should the raised issues be deemed unfounded, a lack of jurisdiction would have to be declared. Hence, their relevance.

2.– The referring judges identify a first aspect of contrast between Article 23-quater, paragraph 2, of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, as converted, and Article 103, second paragraph, of the Constitution, which would be violated, for some (orders registered under numbers 70 and 71 of the register of orders for 2025), with reference to Article 5, paragraph 1, letter a), of Constitutional Law of April 20, 2012, no. 1 (Introduction of the principle of budget balance in the Constitutional Charter); for others, "in relation” to Articles 81, sixth paragraph, and 97, first paragraph, of the Constitution (orders registered under numbers 240 to 243 of the register of orders for 2025).

Overall, the referring judges emphasize that with the provision under Article 1, paragraph 169, of Law no. 228 of 2012, the legislator intended to assign the Court of Audit full cognizance regarding a matter relevant not only for the containment of public finance but, before that, for the definition of the scope of the consolidated financial statements of the State, based on which public finance balances are determined, in application of Regulation (EU) 549/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of May 21, 2013, on the European System of Accounts in the European Union, given the necessity of an accounting assessment for this purpose.

On the other hand, following the reform introduced by Constitutional Law no. 1 of 2012 and Law of December 24, 2012, no. 243 (Provisions for the implementation of the budget balance principle pursuant to Article 81, sixth paragraph, of the Constitution), the notion of "public accounting” relevant under Article 103, second paragraph, of the Constitution, includes the essential rules for the formation of an accounting system comparable at the European level, comprising the public administrations involved (identified based on specific economic-financial characteristics), the regulation of budgets, basic principles concerning the consolidation of accounts, and procedures related to revenues and expenditures.

The contested provision would thus have withdrawn from the accounting jurisdiction the possibility to hear disputes concerning the scope and main effects of inclusion in the aforementioned list, severing the aspects of domestic relevance from those of European relevance, by which the former are conditioned.

2.1.– According to two of the six orders (registered under numbers 241 and 242 of the register of orders for 2025), the violation of Article 103, second paragraph, of the Constitution also exists if the interpositio legislatoris for the attribution of accounting jurisdiction in matters of public accounting were asserted; this is due to the close link between the control functions of the Court of Audit, referable to Article 100 of the Constitution, and the jurisdictional functions attributed to the same Court by Article 103, second paragraph, of the Constitution.

Therefore, the contested Article 23-quater, paragraph 2, would have illegitimately affected the osmosis between the two functions of the Court of Audit, recognized and valued by the legislator in the original wording of the aforementioned Article 11, paragraph 6.

3.– All orders also complain of the violation of Article 3 of the Constitution by Article 23-quater, paragraph 2, of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, as converted, as interpreted by the civil joint sections of the Court of Cassation with judgment of November 25, 2024, no. 30220, adopted pursuant to Article 363, third paragraph, of the Code of Civil Procedure, and delivered on an appeal against the judgment of October 19, 2023, no. 17, of the joint sections of the Court of Audit, which affirmed accounting jurisdiction by disapplying Article 23-quater of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, as converted, as being contrary to European law, as interpreted by the Court of Justice of the European Union in the judgment of July 13, 2023, Joined Cases C-363/21 and C-364/21, Ferrovienord spa and Federazione italiana triathlon.

According to the aforementioned judgment of the Joint Sections, faced with the contraction of the scope of accounting jurisdiction produced by the provision, there was a simultaneous "expansion of the jurisdiction of the administrative judge,” on the premise that "the inclusion in the ISTAT list has a measure-like nature, to which a legal situation of legitimate interest is opposed on the part of the entities involved,” a scope referable to the administrative jurisdiction pursuant to Article 7 of Annex 1 (Code of Administrative Procedure) to Legislative Decree of July 2, 2010, no. 104 (Implementation of Article 44 of Law of June 18, 2009, no. 69, delegating the Government to reorganize administrative procedure).

According to the referring judges, the interpretation of the Court of Cassation would not be sustainable, as it is impossible to proceed with a splitting of assessments that assigns to the administrative judge the review of the attribution of the status of an entity belonging to the list of public administrations and to the accounting judge the cognizance of the effects relating to the application of rules on public finance containment; this is because the very inclusion in the list published in the Official Gazette automatically entails subjection to the binding discipline contained in the financial legislation.

The approach adopted by the Court of Cassation would instead require admitting the coexistence of a jurisdiction held by the Court of Audit, which Article 11, paragraph 6, of the Code of Accounting Justice defines as exclusive, and a general and concurrent jurisdiction of the administrative judge, which would become primary and temporally antecedent to that assigned to the Court of Audit, and potentially absorbent of it, with the further effect of a significant hollowing out of the accounting jurisdiction.

On a procedural level, the inseparable interpenetration between the normative issues would lead to configuring the administrative judgment "as a true preliminary cause pursuant to art. 295 of the Code of Civil Procedure and art. 106 of the Code of Accounting Justice.”

The consequences of separating the proceedings would therefore be entirely unreasonable.

The eventual annulment of the entity's inclusion in the ISTAT list pronounced by the administrative judge would, in fact, determine the supervening cessation of the subject matter of the dispute before the accounting judge, once the qualification of the entity as a public administration—the prerequisite for the application of national legislation on public finance containment—is excluded.

On the other hand, for the latter reason, the annulment obtained before the administrative judge would lead to overcoming the very necessity of also filing an appeal before the Court of Audit.

If, however, there were a final administrative judgment rejecting the appeal against inclusion in the ISTAT list, a subsequent decision by the accounting judge excluding the applicability of national legislation on public finance containment to the entity would appear eccentric, contrasting with the finding by the administrative judge of the correctness of the qualification of the entity as a public administration, pursuant to European law.

4.– Articles 24, 111, and 113, third paragraph, of the Constitution would also be violated, as Article 23-quater, paragraph 2, of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, as converted, excludes the possibility of obtaining the annulment of the measure, guaranteed by the aforementioned Article 113 of the Constitution (orders registered under numbers 70 and 71 of the register of orders for 2025) and, in any case, makes access to jurisdiction and the right to bring an action difficult, requiring recourse to two different judges to obtain a finding that the conditions for inclusion in the ISTAT list are absent and to contest the related administrative limitations; thereby violating the principle of reasonable duration of proceedings (orders registered under numbers 240 to 243 of the register of orders for 2025).

4.1.– The orders registered under numbers 70 and 71 of the register of orders for 2025 also find a violation of Articles 25, 102, 108, and 111 of the Constitution, on the premise that the subjects included in the ISTAT list cannot "activate valid judicial protection,” as "the 2020 amendment does not appear in any way to have expressly attributed constitutive protection to another judicial body.”

On one hand, the revival of the norms attributing jurisdiction to the administrative judge, repealed by Article 1, paragraph 169, of Law no. 228 of 2012, would not apply in this case, since such revival would not be general and automatic, and can only be recognized if a new law provides for it (reference is made to this Court's judgments no. 185 of 2024 and no. 7 of 2020); on the other hand, the "principle of the law reservation regarding the judiciary” under Article 108 of the Constitution, which also protects special judges, would be relevant.

4.2.– The orders registered under numbers 240 to 243 of the register of orders for 2025 also raise the issue of violation of Article 117 of the Constitution, holding that the national judicial system, as a result of the limitation of the accounting judge’s cognizance to domestic aspects only, does not ensure any remedy against the non-compliance with Union law by ISTAT’s recognition act before any other judge.

In any case, Article 117 of the Constitution would be violated – according to the orders registered under numbers 241 and 242 of the register of orders for 2025, also in relation to Article 19 of the Treaty on European Union, Article 47, paragraph 2, of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, as well as Articles 6 and 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights – because the 2020 amendment would have required entities included in the ISTAT list that have already appealed to the accounting judge to necessarily file another one before the administrative judge to obtain the erga omnes annulment of the decision that included them in the list; this is because the incidental disapplication of the entity's inclusion in the list by the Court of Audit would only be relevant for the purposes of national legislation on public finance containment.

Thus, the effective application of Union law would be prevented, which should instead allow the qualified entity to file, with a single appeal, the claim aimed at preventing the European effects of inclusion from applying to it.

4.3.– Finally, according to the orders registered under numbers 70 and 71 of the register of orders for 2025, the contested Article 23-quater, paragraph 2, would also violate Articles 76 and 77 of the Constitution, since, lacking "any connection with the emergency determined by the pandemic” stemming from the spread of the COVID-19 virus, it was inserted during the conversion of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020 as a "provision heterogeneous to the object or purpose of the COVID Decree,” which has nothing to do with the entry into force of a rule limiting the competence of the Court of Audit to hear the exact subjective delimitation of the consolidated financial statement.

5.– The orders registered under numbers 70, 71, and 242 of the register of orders for 2025 also raise questions of constitutional legitimacy of paragraph 1 of the same Article 23-quater of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, as converted, according to which: "[T]o the entities indicated in List 1 annexed to this Decree, as units that, according to criteria established by the European System of National and Regional Accounts in the European Union (ESA 2010), referred to in Regulation (EU) no. 549/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of May 21, 2013, contribute to determining the public finance balances of the consolidated accounts of public administrations, the provisions concerning the balance of budgets and the sustainability of public administration debt shall in any case apply, pursuant to and for the purposes of Articles 3 and 4 of Law of December 24, 2012, no. 243, as well as those concerning obligations to communicate relevant data and information on public finance.”

5.1.– According to the first two of the aforementioned orders, this provision, in contrast with Articles 24, 101, 104, 111 of the Constitution, would determine an interference by the legislator in the autonomy of the jurisdiction of the Court of Audit, subjecting the indicated entities, although recipients of "final judgments” by the accounting judge, to the application of provisions concerning the balance of budgets and the sustainability of public administration debt.

5.2.– The order registered under no. 242 of the register of orders for 2025, adopted in a proceeding initiated by Trentino sviluppo spa, an entity indicated in the list annexed to Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, as converted, justifies the relevance of the raised issues by observing that if the provision of paragraph 1, whose literal scope appears to have "legislated” even for the future its quality as "public administration,” remained in force, the legal qualification of the aforesaid company "would still appear entirely uncertain.” The appellant would thus have "a current and concrete interest in a decision on the merits […] worthy of protection in judicial proceedings,” regarding the uncertainties about its legal position.

The contested paragraph 1 violates, first of all, Article 3 of the Constitution, as it is a measure-law that, in the absence of justifying reasons, attributes "only to eight legal persons the subjective qualification, by legal source, of a unit included in the consolidated financial statements of public administrations pursuant to ESA 2010.”

In this case, it is also relevant that Trentino sviluppo spa had obtained the acceptance of the appeal against its inclusion in the list prepared by ISTAT in 2019, annulled by the Joint Sections with a ruling read at the hearing of September 16, 2020, and that the company itself "was nevertheless included” in the list published on September 30, 2020, "despite the content” of that ruling.

By altering the effects of the ruling, the contested provision also violates Articles 24, 103, and 111 of the Constitution, affecting the appellant’s right to defense and the accounting jurisdictional function.

The canons of reasonableness and the principles of impartiality and good administration, protected by Articles 3 and 97 of the Constitution, are likewise violated, since the ex lege attribution of the quality of public administration to eight entities affects the modalities of administrative action aimed at ascertaining this "particular status, subject to variations over time and, in any case, anchored to specific criteria of a statistical-economic nature derived from the EU,”.

Finally, the contested provision conflicts with Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, in relation to Article 19 of the TUE, Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and Articles 6 and 13 of the ECHR, by not offering "stable protection of the appellant’s right to the correct re-evaluation of its quality as a ‘public administration’ based on the rules set out in the ESA 2010 Regulation.”

6.– In all proceedings, the President of the Council of Ministers intervened, represented and defended by the State Advocacy, requesting that the raised issues be declared unfounded.

The State defense refers to the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of July 13, 2023, Joined Cases C-363/21 and C-364/21, Ferrovienord spa and a., according to which the Union provisions that were the subject of the preliminary reference from the joint sections of the Court of Audit "must be interpreted as meaning that: they do not preclude national legislation that limits the competence of the accounting judge to rule on the validity of an entity's inclusion in the list of public administrations, provided that the effective application of the aforementioned regulations and directive, as well as the effective judicial protection required by Union law, are guaranteed.”

The same ruling also affirmed that, from the perspective of Union law, "the fact that the competent court,” i.e., the administrative judge, "is not […] the one designated by the Constitution of the Italian Republic as the competent judge in matters of budget” (point 99) is irrelevant.

The Advocacy notes that the institutional activity carried out by ISTAT, the effects of which were originally "merely classifying” in relation to the European System of Accounts, acquired "another effect” by virtue of Law no. 196 of 2009, according to which the list of public administrations drawn up by ISTAT constitutes the subjective reference parameter for public finance provisions.

Therefore, acknowledging "this duplication of effects (merely statistical in relation to the ESA and European accounting rules, and financial in relation to the domestic system),” the contested provision limits the effects of the decision of the Court of Audit "solely to the purposes of applying national legislation on the containment of public expenditure.”

6.1.– This being established, the complaints raised by the referring Joint Sections are unfounded.

6.1.1.– The alleged breach of judicial protection should be excluded because the limitation of the accounting jurisdiction has been followed by an expansion of the general jurisdiction of the administrative judge. Furthermore, the legislator, in exercising its discretion, "identified a more limited scope” for the accounting jurisdiction, excluding from it "the application of EU legislation.”

Nor can the risk of "a lack of effective protection” be considered due to the alleged necessity for the entity included in the ISTAT list to file two separate appeals, in violation of the "principle of self-sufficiency of the appeal.” Referring to the reasoning with which the civil joint sections of the Court of Cassation, in judgment no. 30220 of 2024, excluded such a risk, the Advocacy observes that "the judicial protection of annulment is attributed solely to the administrative judge, with the consequent self-sufficiency, from this perspective, of the appeal filed with it,” and that the cognizance regarding the lawfulness of inclusion in the ISTAT list, which remains with the accounting judge, incidentally, would in reality have "an object not necessarily and exactly overlapping, as it is limited to the effects of domestic discipline on spending review.”

It follows that the administrative judge, as was already the case before Law no. 228 of 2012, guarantees full protection to the appellant today.

6.1.2.– The questions of constitutional legitimacy raised with reference to Articles 24, 101, 104, 111, and 113 of the Constitution are also unfounded, since disputes relating to the purely statistical inclusion of a subject in the ISTAT list would not have "strictly accounting aspects, but general and systemic effects,” as would emerge from the fact that, in the absence of a general definition of public administration, the legislator referred to this list to identify the subjective scope of application of administrative laws, which are not strictly accounting-related.

The organizational relevance assumed by the ISTAT list therefore leads to the exclusion that the inclusion of a subject therein constitutes a "strictly accounting matter,” such that the attribution of cognizance to the administrative judge infringes upon the jurisdiction of the Court of Audit. On the other hand, constitutional jurisprudence has specified that the jurisdiction of this judge in matters of public accounting is only generally typical, being susceptible to expansion by interpretation, "in the absence of specific regulation by the legislator who may also provide for the jurisdiction and attribute it to a different judge” (reference is made to judgment no. 641 of 1987).

6.1.3.– Regarding the aspect of constitutional illegitimacy raised by the orders registered under numbers 70 and 71 of the register of orders for 2025, the State defense, excluding the relevance of Article 76 of the Constitution, as the delegation of legislative power to the executive branch is not at issue here, deems the violation of Article 77 of the Constitution unfounded, since the contested Article 23-quater intervenes in one of the areas originally covered by Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020.

Among the matters on which it laid down urgent provisions, the "justice” area is also included, as mentioned in the title of the Decree, which pertains to issues of jurisdiction of the Court of Audit. Furthermore, the content of the contested provision, having repercussions also on the State budget, is consistent with a normative intervention carried out in a context of epidemiological emergency and consequent great attention to state accounts.

The contested Article 23-quater would therefore be homogeneous both with Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020 and with the conversion law.

7.– In all proceedings, the Attorney General of the Court of Audit deposited an "act of appearance/intervention” signaling, first and foremost, that he is a party in the proceedings a quibus pursuant to Article 127 of the Code of Accounting Justice, which, regulating the "Appearance of the parties” in single-instance proceedings before the joint sections in special composition, mentions the Attorney General in paragraph 2 "as a necessary intervening party in the judgment.”

In this capacity, the public prosecutor would have the standing to participate in the constitutional legitimacy review, pursuant to Article 25, second paragraph, of Law of March 11, 1953, no. 87 (Rules on the constitution and functioning of the Constitutional Court) and Articles 3 and 4 of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court.

In this regard, while hoping for a reconsideration by this Court of the position against the admissibility of such participation, the Attorney General argues that both Law no. 87 of 1953 and the Supplementary Rules constitute a "development and integration” of Article 1 of Constitutional Law of February 9, 1948, no. 1 (Rules on judgments of constitutional legitimacy and guarantees of independence of the Constitutional Court), which, by providing for the possibility that the question of constitutional legitimacy be "raised by one of the parties during a proceeding,” leaves no doubt that, as specifically mentioned, "the public prosecutor, as a party to the a quo proceeding, constitutes, in every respect, ‘one of the parties’”.

Furthermore, this would be an interpretation consistent with both the principle of equality of arms under Article 111, second paragraph, of the Constitution, and the high hierarchical level of Constitutional Law no. 1 of 1948, which requires interpreting the entire regulation secundum constitutionem, in the sense that, in the absence of an express exclusion of the public prosecutor, any reference to "parties,” in the provisions that, like Article 3 of the Supplementary Rules, regulate the constitutional legitimacy review, should be understood to include the prosecuting body that is part of the a quo proceeding.

Moreover, the public prosecutor should be granted procedural powers equal to those of the other parties, considering that, in this case, there are no reasons that would justify excluding the prosecuting body from participating in the constitutional legitimacy review.

On the other hand, the preclusion of participation in the incidental proceeding would have the singular effect of preventing the public prosecutor both from illustrating the grounds of constitutional illegitimacy presented by him in the a quo proceeding and from taking a position on those raised by the other parties or noticed ex officio by the judge.

Finally, this preclusion would be even more unjustified following the introduction of the opinions of amici curiae into the constitutional legitimacy review proceedings, as the public prosecutor would be afforded treatment even more detrimental than that reserved for them.

In the unlikely event that his standing to appear in court were deemed lacking, the Attorney General of the Court of Audit also explains a request to intervene, pursuant to Article 20, third paragraph, of Law no. 87 of 1953 and Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules.

7.1.– On the merits, the Attorney General, summarizing and endorsing the complaints of constitutional illegitimacy formulated by the referring Joint Sections, concludes for the declaration of constitutional illegitimacy of Article 23-quater of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, as converted.

8.– Ferrovienord spa intervened in the proceeding related to order registered under no. 70 of the register of orders for 2025, requesting that the intervention be declared admissible and, on the merits, that the issues raised by the a quo judge be upheld, adhering to the complaints made by the referring Joint Sections.

The company maintains the admissibility of its intervention by arguing that the eventual declaration of unfoundedness of the raised issues would lead to a declaration of lack of jurisdiction in the proceedings initiated by it before the Court of Audit to obtain a finding that the prerequisites for its inclusion in the ISTAT list are absent and the related annulment.

9.– In the proceeding related to order registered under no. 241 of the register of orders for 2025, Autostrada del Brennero spa, appellant in the main proceeding, entered an appearance.

Requesting that the raised issues be declared founded, the party observes that the contested Article 23-quater was introduced "to sterilize part of the jurisdictional competence of the National Judge” on the contents of the ISTAT list, as would emerge not only from the provision in paragraph 2, but also from that in paragraph 1, with which the legislator would have "‘neutralized,’ even retroactively,” the effect of rulings made in 2020 by the Joint Sections of the Court of Audit, finding the illegitimate inclusion of certain entities in the ISTAT list.

10.– In the proceeding related to order registered under no. 243 of the register of orders for 2025, Ferrovienord spa, appellant in the main proceeding, entered an appearance.

The party, deeming the issues relevant, having requested the Court of Audit to ascertain the absence of prerequisites for its inclusion in the ISTAT list and to annul the latter, asserts their foundation on the assumption that the process of recognizing public administrations carried out annually by ISTAT has an "accounting nature,” which does not allow for "hypothesizing a ‘splitting’” between the scope attributed to the Court of Audit and that attributed to the administrative judge.

11.– With a brief filed in the proceeding registered under no. 71 of the register of orders for 2025, the President of the Council of Ministers recalled the arguments in support of the unfoundedness of the questions of constitutional legitimacy.

The Attorney General of the Court of Audit, with briefs of a similar nature, also reiterated the reasons supporting the admissibility of his appearance in the constitutional legitimacy reviews and the foundation of the issues.

Considerations in Law

12.– The Court of Audit, joint sections in jurisdictional session in special composition, with six orders registered under numbers 70, 71, and from 240 to 243 of the register of orders for 2025, has raised questions of constitutional legitimacy concerning Article 23-quater, paragraph 2, of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, as converted.

This provision amended Article 11, paragraph 6, letter b), of the Code of Accounting Justice, by adding, after the words "carried out by ISTAT,” the following: ", solely for the purposes of applying the national legislation on the containment of public expenditure,” so that it now reads: "[T]he joint sections in special composition, in the exercise of their exclusive jurisdiction in matters of public accounting, decide in a single instance on judgments: […] b) concerning the recognition of public administrations carried out by ISTAT, solely for the purposes of applying the national legislation on the containment of public expenditure.”

All the proceedings a quibus were initiated by entities that sought the annulment of the annual recognition measures carried out by ISTAT pursuant to Article 1, paragraphs 2 and 3, of Law no. 196 of 2009, in the part in which they were included among public administrations.

Regarding relevance, the orders deem that the possibility of deciding on the requests for annulment under review depends on the resolution of doubts of constitutional legitimacy because, should these be declared unfounded, jurisdiction would have to be declined.

Indeed, the contested provision allegedly limited the scope of accounting jurisdiction over the activity carried out by ISTAT solely for the purposes of applying national legislation on the containment of public expenditure, whereas, since the entry into force of Article 1, paragraph 169, of Law no. 228 of 2012, the content of which was subsequently incorporated into the aforementioned letter b) of Article 11, paragraph 6, of the Code of Accounting Justice, the accounting judge, in the exercise of its exclusive jurisdiction, primarily took cognizance of the correctness of the recognition of public administrations carried out by ISTAT according to the definitions contained in European legislation concerning the European System of Accounts.

According to all the referring judges, the contested Article 23-quater, paragraph 2, contrasts:

a) with Article 103, second paragraph, of the Constitution, also with reference to Article 5, paragraph 1, letter a), of Constitutional Law no. 1 of 2012 (orders registered under numbers 70 and 71 of the register of orders for 2025), or in systematic connection with Articles 81, sixth paragraph, and 97, first paragraph, of the Constitution (orders registered under numbers 240 to 243 of the register of orders for 2025), as the rules of European matrix relevant for defining the scope of public administrations and the related consolidated accounting data must be considered included in the matters of "public accounting” assigned to accounting jurisdiction by the constitutional provision;

b) with Article 3 of the Constitution, for the illogical and unreasonable effects deriving from the interpretation provided for this provision by the civil joint sections of the Court of Cassation with judgment no. 30220 of 2024, according to which, faced with the contraction of the scope of accounting jurisdiction, the jurisdiction of the administrative judge was simultaneously "expanded”; administrative jurisdiction would, in fact, become not only primary and temporally antecedent to that assigned to the Court of Audit, and potentially absorbent of it, but the splitting of assessments falling under the two jurisdictional scopes would also lead to unsustainable outcomes;

c) with Articles 24, 111, and 113, third paragraph, of the Constitution, by excluding or in any case limiting the possibility of obtaining the annulment of the inclusion in the list of public administrations.

The contested provision would also violate:

d) Articles 25, 102, 108, and 111 of the Constitution, on the premise of the absence of "valid judicial protection,” as the 2020 amendment did not intend to "expressly attribute constitutive protection to another judicial body” (orders registered under numbers 70 and 71 of the register of orders for 2025);

e) Article 117 of the Constitution – also in relation to Article 19 of the TUE, Article 47, paragraph 2, of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, as well as Articles 6 and 13 of the ECHR (orders registered under numbers 241 and 242 of the register of orders for 2025) –, determining the absence of remedies against non-compliance with Union law by ISTAT’s recognition act before any other judge (orders registered under numbers 240 to 243 of the register of orders for 2025);

f) Articles 76 and 77 of the Constitution, due to the heterogeneity of its contents with respect to the object and purposes of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, into which it was inserted during the conversion proceedings (orders registered under numbers 70 and 71 of the register of orders for 2025).

12.1.– The orders registered under numbers 70, 71, and 242 of the register of orders for 2025 also raise questions of constitutional legitimacy of paragraph 1 of the same Article 23-quater of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, as converted, according to which: "[T]o the entities indicated in List 1 annexed to this Decree, as units that, according to criteria established by the European System of National and Regional Accounts in the European Union (ESA 2010), referred to in Regulation (EU) no. 549/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of May 21, 2013, contribute to determining the public finance balances of the consolidated accounts of public administrations, the provisions concerning the balance of budgets and the sustainability of public administration debt shall in any case apply, pursuant to and for the purposes of Articles 3 and 4 of Law of December 24, 2012, no. 243, as well as those concerning obligations to communicate relevant data and information on public finance.”

According to the aforementioned orders, this provision violates, overall, Articles 3, 24, 97, 101, 103, 104, 111, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 19 of the TUE, Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, and Articles 6 and 13 of the ECHR.

Indeed, with a measure-law, devoid of adequate justifying reasons, the legislator allegedly interfered with the autonomy of the jurisdiction of the Court of Audit, subjecting the indicated entities, although recipients of final judgments, to the application of provisions concerning the balance of budgets and the sustainability of public administration debt.

Moreover, the same provision violates the canons of reasonableness and the principles of impartiality and good administration, by affecting the modalities of administrative action aimed at ascertaining the status of public administration, and infringes the right, of European and conventional origin, to judicial review of this qualification.

13.– The orders raise identical or strictly connected issues, making it appropriate to join the related proceedings.

Preliminarily, the intervention of Ferrovienord spa in the proceeding registered under no. 70 of the register of orders for 2025 must be declared inadmissible, as it lacks a direct and immediate interest in the relationship under dispute. Moreover, the company legitimately appeared in the subsequent proceeding registered under no. 243 of the register of orders for 2025, as a party in the a quo proceeding.

14.– Still preliminarily, the admissibility of the appearance of the Attorney General of the Court of Audit in the proceedings must be assessed.

In this regard, with specific reference to the accounting public prosecutor, this Court has previously highlighted the specificity of his position, "especially when he is the holder of the power to initiate the process itself” (judgments no. 375 and no. 1 of 1996), excluding, precisely "due to this specificity, […] that the appearance, in incidental proceedings of constitutional legitimacy review, of the public prosecutor of the a quo proceedings can be deemed provided for or regulated by the general and supplementary procedural rules before the Constitutional Court and, at the same time, that the regulation provided for the parties can be resorted to by analogy” (judgment no. 375 of 1996 again).

The main proceedings in relation to which this orientation was expressed originated, in fact, from administrative liability actions brought by the accounting public prosecutor, as in the nearby precedent that substantially continued this jurisprudence (judgment no. 123 of 2023, point 2.1. of Considerations in Law).

The proceedings under examination, however, are governed by specific provisions, contained in Chapter Three of Title Four of Part Two of the Code of Accounting Justice, distinct from those established for liability proceedings, and which do not show the accounting public prosecutor as the holder of exclusive powers to initiate proceedings, but rather as the holder of the public interest in the correct management of accounts.

The specificity of the position of the accounting public prosecutor, as well as of the single-instance proceeding before the joint sections in special composition, leads to the conclusion that, in this case, his participation in the incidental review is permitted.

It should also be noted that, in response to requests by the Attorney General of the Court of Audit to intervene in incidental proceedings initiated by Regional Audit Sections during regional account equalization proceedings – in which the regional prosecutor participates without holding powers of initiative – this Court recently declared the interventions inadmissible, without referring to the well-known orientation that precludes the presence of the public prosecutor ex se (judgment no. 123 of 2023 cited), observing, "as an overriding factor,” that the Attorney General "is not a party to the a quo proceeding” (ruling read at the hearing of November 21, 2023, attached to judgment no. 1 of 2024; similarly, judgment no. 150 of 2025, point 2 of Considerations in Law and precedents cited therein).

In the terms set out, the appearance of the Attorney General of the Court of Audit in the proceedings is therefore admissible.

15.– The questions of constitutional legitimacy of Article 23-quater, paragraph 2, of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, as converted, are admissible, as they are relevant for the very assessment of the potestas iudicandi of the accounting judge on the claims introduced by the appellants, as correctly reasoned by the orders.

16.– The completely particular nature assumed, over time, by both the ISTAT list and the connected judicial review makes it appropriate, for the purpose of a more precise examination of the merits of the raised issues, to retrace its complex evolution.

The aforementioned list was established by Law of December 30, 2004, no. 311, concerning "Provisions for the formation of the annual and multi-year State budget (2005 Financial Law),” which assigned ISTAT the task of annually drawing up a list of public administrations, simultaneously setting a limit on their total expenditure, in order to "ensure the achievement of the public finance objectives established at the European Union level” (Article 1, paragraph 5).

In compiling the list, ISTAT took as classifying and definitive rules for public administrations those of Council Regulation (EC) no. 2223/96 of June 25, 1996, concerning the European System of Accounts in the Community, known as ESA 95, based on statistical methods, including in the list the "institutional units” that it found to possess the requirements for this classification under the cited regulation.

Originally, judgments on appeals against inclusion in the list were devolved to the administrative justice bodies, within the scope of general jurisdiction for legality review.

16.1.– The placement of public administrations in this list, neutral in itself if limited to the statistical function alone, has progressively assumed, over time, a specific scope which, as also noted by the State Advocacy, has transcended this function, becoming increasingly decisive for verifying compliance with the financial convergence policies imposed by the European Union and for the application of disciplines external to these policies.

From the perspective of strengthening the ISTAT list as a tool for controlling national public deficit and debt, Article 1, paragraph 1, of Law no. 196 of 2009 specified, in fact, that "[P]ublic administrations contribute to the pursuit of public finance objectives defined at the national level in coherence with the procedures and criteria established by the European Union and share the resulting responsibilities. The contribution to the pursuit of these objectives is realized according to the fundamental principles of harmonization of public budgets and coordination of public finance.”

The same Article 1, in paragraph 2, then specified that "[F]or the purposes of applying provisions on public finance,” the entities and other subjects identified by ISTAT in special lists are considered public administrations, which, pursuant to the following paragraph, are updated annually "based on the definitions contained in the specific European Union regulations” by a recognition measure, published in the Official Gazette by September 30.

From this point of view, the cited EC Regulation no. 2223/96 became decisive also for the effective observance by Member States of the obligation, deriving from Article 126 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), to avoid excessive public deficits.

Protocol no. 12 to the TFEU on the excessive deficit procedure, in fact, clarifies, in Article 2, that the relevant concepts for this purpose (public sector and public administration, deficit, investment) are defined according to the System of National Accounts (SNA).

16.2.– When the monetary policies adopted at the European Union level in response to the 2009 financial crisis led, through the adoption of the so-called Fiscal Compact, to a strong accentuation of the financial rigor required of Member States, the role of the ESA and therefore of the ISTAT list simultaneously strengthened further, becoming an essential reference point for the application of national rules which, aligning with the new and stricter European constraints, gradually limited the operational scope of the subjects included in the national consolidated budget.

16.3.– This was a vast process.

In particular, Constitutional Law no. 1 of 2012, by introducing the new first paragraph to Article 97 of the Constitution, established the obligation for all public administrations to ensure the balance of budgets and the sustainability of public debt, "in coherence with the European Union legal order.”

Article 2, paragraph 1, letter a), of Law no. 243 of 2012 then defined "public administrations” as "the entities identified with the procedures and measures provided for, in coherence with the European Union legal order, by the legislation on public accounting and finance, structured into the sub-sectors of central administrations, local administrations, and national social security and welfare entities.”

These provisions implicitly relied on the ESA: the ISTAT list applying it was thus stabilized in the legal system as the instrument functional to defining the scope of subjects subject to the obligations to ensure the balance of budgets and the sustainability of public debt and, instrumentally, of spending review rules, thus assuming a function far beyond its original one.

16.4.– Currently, the European legislation applied by ISTAT for the recognition of public administrations is constituted by Regulation no. 549/2013/EU (ESA 2010), which replaced EC Regulation no. 2223/96 (ESA 95).

In order to ensure the comparability of the economic accounts of Member States, the aforementioned regulation requires their preparation "based on uniform and unambiguous interpretative principles” (recital no. 3), establishing, in Article 1, paragraph 2, that ESA 2010 provides for: a) "a methodology (Annex A) relating to the common norms, definitions, classifications, and accounting rules that must be used for the preparation of accounts and tables on a comparable basis for the needs of the Union, as well as the economic results” (i.e., accounting balances); b) "a programme (Annex B) intended to establish the deadlines within which Member States transmit to the Commission (Eurostat) the accounts and tables to be compiled in accordance with” this methodology.

Under the ESA 2010 system, institutional units are grouped into five national institutional sectors, including, for present purposes, that of public administrations, which comprises subjects that "act as producers of non-market goods and services, whose production is intended for collective and individual consumption and are financed by mandatory transfers made by units belonging to other sectors, as well as institutional units whose main function consists in redistributing the income and wealth of the country” (Annex A, point 2.111).

This definition is specified by a series of analytical criteria that, in particular, aim to verify whether a subject, regardless of formal qualification, is a market operator, under what competitive conditions it operates, and whether it is controlled by a public administration (so-called market/non-market test).

The notion thus includes not only public bodies of the State and local authorities but also a series of other entities, to be identified individually, regardless of the public or private legal personality they possess.

It should be specified that the criteria outlined by ESA 2010 for identifying public administrations are based on factual circumstances, which, by their nature, are not static but change over time and therefore require an annual update of the corresponding list by ISTAT.

16.5.– It is precisely in harmony with this evolution of the function of the ISTAT list that Article 1, paragraph 169, of Law no. 228 of 2012 laid down a specific provision to establish that "[A]gainst the acts of recognition of public administrations annually carried out by ISTAT pursuant to Article 1, paragraph 3, of Law of December 31, 2009, no. 196, an appeal is admissible to the joint sections of the Court of Audit, in special composition, pursuant to Article 103, second paragraph, of the Constitution.”

As of January 1, 2013, the legislator thus abolished the previous two levels of jurisdiction of the administrative judge over measures adopted by ISTAT, replacing it with the concentration of jurisdiction in a single instance before the joint sections of the Court of Audit – a specialized judge in matters of public accounting – in special composition.

The aforementioned provision was then incorporated into Article 11, paragraph 6, letter b), of the Code of Accounting Justice, which originally provided: "[T]he joint sections in special composition, in the exercise of their exclusive jurisdiction in matters of public accounting, decide in a single instance on judgments: […] b) concerning the recognition of public administrations carried out by ISTAT.”

17.– This provision was affected by the uncontested one, Article 23-quater of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, as converted.

This provision, in paragraph 1, laid down, as recalled, a specific regulation for a restricted set of entities, expressly identifying them ex lege, and in paragraph 2, instead, generally deprived the previous jurisdiction of the Court of Audit of cognizance of disputes relating to inclusion in the ISTAT list, maintaining it only with reference to those concerning the application of spending review rules.

It should be specified that Article 23-quater, inserted during the conversion into law, reproduced the content of Article 5 of Decree-Law of November 23, 2020, no. 154 (Urgent financial measures connected to the COVID-19 epidemiological emergency), which the Government decided to transfer, along with that of the other four articles of the same Decree, into amendments to the bill for the conversion of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, so that Article 1, paragraph 2, of Law no. 176 of 2020 then provided for the repeal of the aforementioned Decree-Law no. 154 of 2020.

18.– Following the aforementioned amendment to the Code of Accounting Justice, the joint sections of the Court of Audit submitted a preliminary reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union, asking to interpret the European legislation on budget balances and ESA 2010, together with the principles of equivalence and effectiveness of protective instruments, believing the national provision to express the legislator's will to exclude any review of the correct identification of public administrations by ISTAT and therefore of the exact delimitation of the consolidated account of the Italian State.

19.– The Court of Justice, with the judgment of July 13, 2023, Joined Cases C-363/21 and C-364/21 Ferrovienord and a., affirmed, in summary, that the decision of the competent national authority to define the composition of the public administration sector pursuant to ESA 2010 "must be capable of being challenged and subject to judicial review,” since "in the absence of a possibility to challenge this qualification, the effective application of Union law would not be guaranteed” (point 69).

It then clarified that, as far as the procedural modalities of judicial appeals are concerned, Union law "does not preclude national legislation that limits the competence of the accounting judge to rule on the validity of an entity's inclusion in the list of public administrations, provided that the effective application of the aforementioned regulations and directive, as well as the effective judicial protection required by Union law, are guaranteed” (point 100).

It then remitted to the domestic judge the assessment of the conditions for deeming the principle of effective judicial protection to be satisfied.

20.– Based on this ruling, the joint sections in jurisdictional session in special composition of the Court of Audit, deeming this principle not met, proceeded, with the judgment of October 19, 2023, no. 17, to disapply Article 23-quater of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, as converted, considering it contrary to Union law.

21.– The latter judgment was appealed to the Court of Cassation by the Ministry of Economy and Finance and ISTAT, respondents in the proceedings before the Joint Sections, asserting the violation or incorrect application of Article 7 of the Code of Administrative Procedure and Article 11 of the Code of Accounting Justice, as amended by Article 23-quater of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, as converted, because the Court of Audit deemed the power to annul the ISTAT list to be within its jurisdiction.

The civil joint sections of the Court of Cassation, with judgment no. 30220 of 2024, found the prerequisites for stating the principle of law pursuant to Article 363 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

In this regard, while acknowledging "undoubted ambiguities” in the wording of Article 23-quater, the Joint Sections affirmed that in the face of the contraction of the scope of accounting jurisdiction, "there has been a simultaneous ‘expansion’ of the jurisdiction of the administrative judge called upon, within the scope of its general jurisdiction for legality review governed by Article 7 of the Code of Administrative Procedure […], to assess the lawfulness of administrative action and the protection of legitimate interests in light of the usual defects of the measure, attributable to incompetence, excess of power, and violation of law.”

Therefore, "[I]n matters of challenging the annual ISTAT list of public administrations prepared pursuant to ESA 2010, Article 23-quater of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, by limiting the jurisdiction of the Court of Audit—joint sections—to the sole application of national legislation on public finance containment, has not determined a gap in protection or failure to respect the effective application of Union law, jurisdiction remaining attributed, for all further scope, to the administrative judge.”

22.– Such, therefore, is, according to the existing law, the scope of the contested norm and on which this Court is called to rule.

Also considering the previously described evolution, the complaint raised by all referring judges with reference to Article 3 of the Constitution is well-founded, due to the manifest lack of intrinsic rationality of the contested norm, which maintains, in the face of the expansion of administrative jurisdiction, the accounting jurisdiction "solely for the purposes of applying national legislation on the containment of public expenditure.”

22.1.– Crucial, in reaching this conclusion, is, in particular, the consideration of the object onto which the new double track of jurisdiction, administrative and accounting, is grafted: the ISTAT list, which, as expressive of a legal situation of a temporary nature, based on criteria also relating to the changeable economic behavior of operators, has only an annual duration.

Precisely by virtue of this particular nature of the list, the previous criterion of concentration of jurisdiction, achieved by entrusting the Court of Audit, in a single instance, with the review of both the correctness of the recognition of public administrations carried out by ISTAT and compliance with spending review rules, responded to a fundamental need for certainty of law, guaranteed by the assignment to a single instance before a high judicial body, specialized in accounting matters.

Disputes concerning both the subjection to and the application of complex spending review rules – whose rigidity this Court has often intervened to mitigate or even censure their irrationality (among others, judgments no. 210 of 2022, no. 33 of 2019, no. 272 of 2015 and no. 79 of 2014) – could thus be resolved uniformly and in a time frame compatible with the spending policies of the entities concerned.

The fragmentation of jurisdiction, however, has fundamentally undermined this result.

As a result of the expansion of administrative jurisdiction, in fact, litigation over inclusion in the annual ISTAT list has lost the characteristic of functional concentration, with disputes assigned to the cognizance of the territorially competent administrative judge in the first instance, determined based on the location of the appellant entity included in the list.

The system thus exposes itself to the risk of jurisprudence differently articulated across the national territory.

It follows that the time for a final decision on whether or not the inclusion in the list is lawful is significantly extended, becoming poorly compatible with the needs for legal certainty of the administrations regarding their subjection or not to the rules on budget balance and public debt sustainability and to those of spending review in the year to which the ISTAT list refers.

Furthermore, the possibility of conflicting judgments has also opened up.

In fact, the limited scope that the contested provision reserves to the jurisdiction of the joint sections of the Court of Audit does not appear to be legally entirely distinguishable and autonomous from that which pertains to the administrative judge.

Both judicial bodies must, in fact, take cognizance of the qualification of a subject as a public administration pursuant to the rules established by Union law: the administrative judge to decide on the essential object of its jurisdiction; the accounting judge to ascertain the legal prerequisite for the application of national legislation on public finance containment.

Therefore, a rejection of the appeal against the inclusion of an entity in the list by the administrative judge could be followed, regarding the applicability of national legislation on public finance containment, by the initiation of a proceeding before the Court of Audit, which could nevertheless rule incidentally, denying it, on the very validity of the entry of the aforementioned entity in the list, thus arriving at disapplying the inclusion made by ISTAT.

The system, ultimately, in addition to having times physiologically incongruous with the needs of the entities involved, also suffers from the risk of conflicting judgments between administrative and accounting jurisdiction regarding the qualification of the subject as a public administration.

No public interest worthy of protection appears to justify such an arrangement.

In this regard, it should be noted that constitutional jurisprudence has often emphasized, concerning derogations from generally applicable rules on jurisdiction, "the need for the transfer of competence to be provided for by law in function of needs themselves of constitutional relevance. Such needs have been identified, for example, in the protection of the independence and impartiality of the judge (judgments no. 109 and no. 50 of 1963, points 2 and 3 of Considerations in Law, respectively), in the objective of ensuring the coherence of judgments and the best fact-finding in cases of connection between proceedings (judgments no. 117 of 1972; no. 142 and no. 15 of 1970, both point 2 of Considerations in Law; orders no. 159 of 2000 and no. 508 of 1989), or in the opportunity to ensure uniformity of jurisprudence regarding certain disputes (judgment no. 117 of 2012, point 4.1. of Considerations in Law)” (judgment no. 38 of 2025).

These needs are in no way apparent in the contested norm, which therefore, without comprehensible justification, foreshadows an ineffective jurisdictional system, articulated in a complex of special and exclusive jurisdiction in matters of public accounting assigned to the Court of Audit and, at the same time, in a concurrent jurisdiction, also special, of a general type, which becomes primary and temporally antecedent, and possibly absorbent, based on judgment parameters focused on the typical defects of the administrative measure.

The splitting of jurisdiction thus renders the applicability or not of spending review rules to a specific entity for the specific year to which the short life of the ISTAT list refers uncertain, compromising legal certainty, which is, instead, the "cornerstone of the system of judicial protection in a state governed by the rule of law” (judgment no. 13 of 2022).

This splitting of jurisdiction thus highlights a defect of manifest intrinsic irrationality in the contested norm (judgments no. 38 of 2025, no. 197 of 2023, no. 186 of 2020 and no. 166 of 2018).

23.– The recomposition of the unity and efficiency of the jurisdictional system, moreover, can only be achieved by restoring to the accounting jurisdiction the review of the correctness of the recognition carried out by ISTAT, with the correlative power to annul the inclusion in the list of public administrations of a subject lacking the required characteristics for this qualification.

In fact, the provision for a single-instance judgment before the joint sections in special composition not only responds, as mentioned, to the need that the certainty of the legal and economic-financial situations of the entities included in the annual ISTAT list is not compromised by the prolongation over time of any disputes or even by conflicting judgments, but also leverages the evident relevance of the conformative determinations of the ISTAT list "to the matter of public accounting (art. 103, comma 2, Constitution)” (Court of Cassation, civil joint sections, order of February 21, 2022, no. 5626) and to the link between this matter and the normative framework emerging from the 2012 constitutional reform, in which the Court of Audit was assigned both control functions for the purpose of balancing the budgets of public administrations, by Law no. 243 of 2012 (Article 20), and jurisdiction over the subjective scope of the same, by the coeval Law no. 228 of 2012.

Moreover, according to this Court, the accounting jurisdiction is "assigned the control over the economic-financial balance of the set of public administrations to protect the economic unity of the Republic, with reference to constitutional parameters (Articles 81, 119, and 120 of the Constitution) and to the constraints deriving from Italy's membership in the European Union (Articles 11 and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution): balance and constraints that find general protection in the review of the Court of Audit as a neutral and independent magistracy, impartial guarantor of the economic-financial balance of the public sector” (judgment no. 60 of 2013).

The "Court of Audit is therefore the most suitable venue” (judgment no. 18 of 2019) to recompose the rationality of the jurisdictional system in question, since it has been seen (supra, point 16.1.) that the ISTAT list, insofar as it is a statistical accounting tool, performs an essential function in preparing the consolidated financial statement of the State according to the rules of ESA 2010 and, consequently, in determining the public finance balances relevant not only for domestic purposes but, above all, European ones.

24.– Therefore, Article 23-quater, paragraph 2, of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, as converted, must be declared constitutionally illegitimate, absorbing all other parameters invoked by the referring judges.

25.– The questions of constitutional legitimacy of paragraph 1 of the invoked Article 23-quater of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, as converted, must now be examined, logically conditioned on the acceptance of those concerning the provision substantially precluding the accounting jurisdiction itself.

They are inadmissible.

25.1.– As for the orders registered under numbers 70 and 71 of the register of orders for 2025 – which, moreover, omit any reasoning on the relevance of the raised issues – it is immediately apparent that the referring judges do not have to apply the contested provision, which concerns subjects other than the appellants in the a quo proceedings (Consorzio interuniversitario sistemi integrati per l’accesso and Investimenti immobiliari italiani società di gestione del risparmio spa, respectively); hence, the irrelevance of the doubt regarding constitutional legitimacy.

25.2.– The order registered under no. 242 of the register of orders for 2025, adopted in a proceeding initiated by an entity included in the scope of application of the contested provision (Trentino sviluppo spa), does justify the relevance of the raised issues in the terms previously summarized (supra, point 5.2.), but fails to clarify the meaning attributed by the a quo judge to Article 23-quater, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, as converted.

Indeed, only by asserting a retroactive effect could the relevance of the question of constitutional legitimacy of a provision that entered into force after the recognition activity carried out by ISTAT that led to the company's inclusion in the list published in the Official Gazette of September 30, 2020, the annulment of which is the object of the a quo proceeding, be supported.

But on this point, which is decisive in this case, the referring judge says nothing, thus failing "the duty to rule clearly on the legal meaning of the norms” submitted to constitutional review and ending "by submitting to the Court the choice of the interpretation underlying the doubt of constitutionality submitted for scrutiny”; which leads to the inadmissibility of the questions (judgment no. 168 of 2020).

for these reasons

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

having joined the proceedings,

1) declares the constitutional illegitimacy of Article 23-quater, paragraph 2, of Decree-Law of October 28, 2020, no. 137 (Further urgent measures regarding health protection, support for workers and businesses, justice, and security, connected to the COVID-19 epidemiological emergency), converted, with amendments, into Law of December 18, 2020, no. 176;

2) declares inadmissible the intervention made by Ferrovienord spa in the proceeding relating to order registered under no. 70 of the register of orders for 2025, indicated in the heading;

3) declares admissible the appearance of the Attorney General of the Court of Audit in the proceedings indicated in the heading;

4) declares inadmissible the questions of constitutional legitimacy of Article 23-quater, paragraph 1, of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, as converted, raised, in aggregate with reference to Articles 3, 24, 97, 101, 103, 104, 111, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 19 of the Treaty on European Union, Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and Articles 6 and 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights, by the Court of Audit, joint sections in jurisdictional session in special composition, with the orders registered under numbers 70, 71, and 242 of the register of orders for 2025, indicated in the heading.

Decided in Rome, at the seat of the Constitutional Court, Palazzo della Consulta, on January 13, 2026.

Signed:

Giovanni AMOROSO, President

Luca ANTONINI, Rapporteur

Igor DI BERNARDINI, Chancellor

Filed in the Chancellery on March 27, 2026