JUDGMENT NO. 47

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, 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 handed down the following

JUDGMENT

in the matter of the conflict of attribution between powers of the State arising from investigative acts carried out by the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Ordinary Court of Catania and the decrees of the Judge for Preliminary Investigations of the same Court dated April 12, 2019, and August 1, 2019, within the criminal proceedings registered under no. 2280/2018 R.G.N.R., initiated by the Senate of the Republic, with a petition notified on September 5, 2025, filed with the Registry on the same date, registered under no. 1 of the 2025 Registry of conflicts between State powers, and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic no. 38, first special series, of the year 2025, merits phase.

Having regard to the act of appearance of the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Court of Catania, as well as the act of intervention of the Chamber of Deputies;

having heard the Reporting Judge Francesco Viganò at the public hearing on February 24, 2026;

having heard the lawyers Vittorio Manes for the Senate of the Republic, Maria Teresa Losasso for the Chamber of Deputies, as well as the Deputy Public Prosecutor Agata Santonocito and the Public Prosecutor Francesco Curcio for the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Court of Catania;

having deliberated in the chambers on February 24, 2026.

Statement of Facts

1.– By a petition notified and filed on September 5, 2025, registered under no. 1 of the 2025 Registry of conflicts between State powers, the Senate of the Republic brought a conflict of attribution between State powers against the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Ordinary Court of Catania, alleging a violation of its constitutional prerogatives pursuant to Art. 68, second and third paragraphs, of the Constitution.

1.1.– The petitioner states, regarding the facts:

– that on July 10, 2024, Senator Valeria Sudano reported to the Senate of the Republic, of which she was a member during the XVIII legislature (from March 23, 2018, to October 12, 2022), that she had learned that ambient wiretaps had been carried out in the premises used as her political office in Catania;

– that in the same communication, Sen. Sudano specified that she had learned of this circumstance from the file of a criminal investigation opened against her live-in partner Luca Rosario Luigi Sammartino, a member of the Sicilian Regional Assembly;

– that, more specifically, according to what Sen. Sudano learned, the wiretaps had been authorized by the Judge for Preliminary Investigations of the Court of Catania with two separate orders on April 12 and August 1, 2019;

– that the latter order had authorized "audio-video interception operations in the office-room in use [by Hon. Sammartino], in the meeting room, and in another office-room on the upper floor: all areas included in the property used as a political office [by Sen.] Valeria Sudano";

– that, during the execution of the first order, the judicial police had entered said premises, "installing ambient peripherals and carrying out a true search of the premises, akin to a home search";

– that the judicial police had also "installed cameras in front of the entrance door of the political office [of Sen.] Sudano," the video files of which – in which the latter had been recorded – were likewise deposited in the investigation records;

– that Sen. Sudano had learned that she had effectively been wiretapped because, when Hon. Sammartino had requested a full copy of the media containing the wiretaps, the public prosecutor had granted the authorization, while ordering that the copy be "duly redacted of the files in which [Sen. Sudano] was present," thus implicitly confirming the existence of such wiretaps.

1.2.– After accounting for the resolution of December 4, 2024, with which the Senate approved the proposal of the Board for Elections and Parliamentary Immunity to raise this conflict of attribution, and after arguing at length on the existence of the admissibility requirements of the petition, on the merits, the petitioner first alleges the violation of Art. 68, third paragraph, of the Constitution.

According to the Senate's defense, it is "undisputed that wiretaps of places frequented by a parliamentarian must be considered directed (at least also) against them and must therefore be authorized by the Chamber to which they belong" (citing Judgments no. 227 of 2023, no. 114 of 2010, and no. 390 of 2007 of this Court). This would occur, in particular, when the wiretaps have the "main purpose of knowing the content of the parliamentarian's conversations and communications" (again Judgment no. 227 of 2023), an expression that should refer, according to the petitioner, to "those cases in which the Judicial Authority knows a priori that, within the scope of the wiretaps, the parliamentarian will also be intercepted (as an habitual interlocutor or habitual visitor of the premises)."

Such a "main purpose" could not, on the other hand, be excluded by a "simple formal act," such as "the registration of the crime report against a subject other than the parliamentarian or, as in this case, the specification of subjecting to listening the environments where objects attributable to a non-parliamentarian suspect have been found." "Parliamentary activity," in fact, "could not be said to be safe from illegitimate judicial interference if the Public Prosecutor's Office were allowed to listen to its dialogues without any authorization, based on a 'mere (self-)declaration of intent.' If this were not so, it would absurdly admit the possibility that the private dialogues of a parliamentarian could be heard, hypothetically, based on pretextual investigations against people close to them, perhaps precisely to obtain information devoid of any criminal relevance, but of clear political relevance (sometimes much more precious than simple proof of guilt), with the (misunderstood) pretext that, anyway, they would not be used in the criminal proceedings."

Such a scenario would lead to "a distortion of the immunity," as "the authorization should be requested not for the listening of their dialogues tout court, but for the interception of only the interlocutions that could incriminate them criminally as an individual."

In the present case, moreover, "the premises were not only presumably (rectius, certainly) frequented by Hon. Sudano, but also formally attributable and registered to her." This would be evidenced, in addition to the presence of her name on the intercom and on the external plaque, as well as the loan-for-use contract registered to her, by the service note of the judicial police at the time of the installation of the bugs, in which it was expressly noted that "on the ground floor of the office, the office in confirmed use by Sen. Valeria Sudano was also identified." The distinction, by the officers, of the premises according to their actual use was allegedly made on the basis of "questionable" criteria and – as in the case of the meeting room – "without any motivation." In any case, it would not have allowed proceeding without the Senate's authorization, given the "certain frequency of conversations between the two, who, besides sharing the spaces, were notoriously united by a long-lasting romantic relationship."

That, moreover, Sen. Sudano habitually frequented the premises would have resulted from the images of the video surveillance activated outside the political office.

It would therefore be undeniable that the interceptions could only take place upon authorization of the relevant Chamber.

1.3.– "Even granting everything," and "wishing to absurdly assume that the frequentation by Sen. Sudano had been initially excluded in good faith," a "subsequent" authorization should have been requested from the Senate as soon as conversations involving her emerged from the interceptions (citing Judgment no. 170 of 2023 of this Court, as well as the Court of Cassation, Third Criminal Section, Judgment November 29, 2019-March 4, 2020, no. 8795).

1.4.– The petitioner further complains that the activities carried out by the judicial police "aimed at the insertion of devices for the interception of conversations and communications between those present" also violated Art. 68, second paragraph, of the Constitution, "having resulted in the abusive intrusion into the domicile [of Sen.] Sudano."

Such intrusion should be traced back to the concept of "home search" referred to in the constitutional provision in question. There would be no doubt, in fact, "that access to the premises of others, which provides for the verification of the state of the places and the verification of the objects and documents present in the various rooms constitutes an activity typically attributable to that of a home search."

This Court would have already noted, on the other hand, that "the concept of domicile, pursuant to Art. 68 of the Constitution, also extends to places where political activity is carried out" (citing Judgment no. 58 of 2004).

A limiting reading of the concept of "search" should then be rejected, as referring exclusively to the activity functional to the search for the corpus delicti or things pertinent to it, as provided by Art. 247 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Such a reading would not be in line with the ratio of protection of Art. 68 of the Constitution, as it must in any case be concluded that an activity aimed at installing interception devices has "a nature comparable in all respects to that of a search," in particular with regard to the "preliminary operations necessary for the placement of the interception instrument," to the "careful search for the most suitable place to position it," to the "search for objects or documents that could link the spaces to the suspect or to the Senator," and – finally – to the "drafting of the final report by the judicial police, in which what was observed and verified was described and documented." Such activities would indeed be even more invasive and detrimental to the parliamentarian's prerogatives, occurring without their knowledge and in the absence of any guarantee.

The qualification of such activities as "searches" would correspond, moreover, to what is recognized by the jurisprudence of legitimacy, according to which "all those activities that involve the violation of the domicile of a parliamentarian and which, with an 'ex ante' evaluation, can indifferently lead to the finding of things or traces of the crime, even if in concrete terms they are not found and in any case things pertinent to the crime are not seized" (citing Court of Cassation, Third Criminal Section, Judgment November 7, 2008-March 13, 2009, no. 11170) fall within the meaning of home search pursuant to Art. 68 of the Constitution. Therefore, it would not be so much the finding of evidence that characterizes the search, as "the investigative activity that involves the violation of the parliamentarian's domicile."

The protection offered by Art. 68 of the Constitution against search activities could not, on the other hand, fail to extend, a fortiori, "to activities which, by their very nature, would be intrinsically illicit in the absence of an express regulatory provision authorizing them," as is precisely "the clandestine entry into a home, in this case aimed at the installation of interception instruments"; an operation, this, which, "in the absence of the legal prerequisites suitable to legitimize it, would be indisputably contrary to law," resulting not only in the violation of Art. 14 of the Constitution but also – in this case – of the immunity referred to in Art. 68 of the Constitution.

Such principles would have already been enunciated by this Court in Judgment no. 58 of 2004, in which it was affirmed that a search ordered or executed in the domicile of a parliamentarian without the necessary authorization of the relevant Chamber constitutes an "objective violation of parliamentary prerogatives, regardless of the subjective awareness or intentions of those who adopted the measure." This would be imposed by the "necessity to guarantee an objective protection of parliamentary functions, which cannot be prejudiced even indirectly, through measures which, even if not intentionally having the parliamentarian as the recipient, end up involving them," as happens as a result of "any activity that implies a covert and unauthorized interference in the domicile of a member of Parliament, even more so if aimed at preparing invasive control instruments such as wiretaps."

1.5.– For all the reasons set forth above, the petitioner asks that this Court "declare the violation of the sphere of the constitutionally guaranteed attributions of the Senate through the investigative acts carried out by the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Court of Catania, to the detriment of those attributable to the Senate of the Republic, consequently declaring the nullity of the authorization decrees for audio and video interceptions indicated above and in any case the inadmissibility of the interceptions thus acquired."

2.– By Order no. 133 of 2025, this Court deemed the subjective and objective prerequisites of the conflict to exist and declared it admissible pursuant to Art. 37, first paragraph, of Law no. 87 of March 11, 1953 (Rules on the constitution and functioning of the Constitutional Court), ordering the notification of the initiating petition and the admissibility order to the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Court of Catania, as well as: (a) to the GIP of the Court of Catania who issued the two measures for which the petitioner asks that nullity be declared, and (b) to the Chamber of Deputies, "given the identity of the constitutional position of the two branches of Parliament in relation to the questions of principle to be addressed."

3.– The Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Court of Catania appeared in court, in the person of the Public Prosecutor, asking that it be declared that the wiretaps executed by the same Prosecutor’s Office, upon the compliant authorization of the GIP of the Court of Catania, "did not violate the sphere of the constitutionally guaranteed attributions of the Senate."

3.1.– The respondent Prosecutor’s Office states, as a matter of fact, attaching copious documentation in support:

– that the investigations within which the controversial wiretaps were ordered never concerned Sen. Sudano, but rather – together with numerous other people – Luca Rosario Luigi Sammartino, who was her live-in partner and a deputy to the Sicilian Regional Assembly, who was subjected to investigations for two distinct criminal facts: one, together with other suspects, relating to the alleged corruption of a municipal councilor of a Sicilian municipality; the other, relating to the alleged corruption of a judicial police officer of the same Catania Prosecutor’s Office, who would have received the assignment from Hon. Sammartino to "clean the environments of his political office using equipment suitable for detecting bugs, in exchange for the payment of a sum of money." Both criminal hypotheses for which a conviction at first instance has already been handed down against the alleged accomplices of Hon. Sammartino;

– that the controversial wiretaps were ordered on a property of 358 square meters consisting of 12.5 cadastral rooms, which at the time of the events hosted "the two well-distinct offices [of Hon.] Sammartino and Senator Sudano," who used the premises as their own political offices "on the basis of two distinct free-of-charge loan-for-use contracts" stipulated with the owner of the property, Hon. Sammartino's uncle;

– that, more specifically, Hon. Sammartino had "historically" used the property for his political needs by virtue of a loan contract registered since 2013, which did not appear to have ever been "rescinded and/or terminated," it having been found that in 2023 an electricity utility registered to Hon. Sammartino since 2012 was active;

– that on October 29, 2018, Sen. Sudano stipulated an autonomous loan contract on the same property, which "was added to that registered by the suspect [Sammartino]," even though she had long been in a position to use the property as Hon. Sammartino's partner;

– that in that same period, Hon. Sammartino would have become aware that he was under investigation, his cell phone having been seized and a measure for the extension of preliminary investigations against him having been notified;

– that, precisely because "particularly worried" about such investigations, he would have assigned a judicial police officer to "clean" the premises used as his political office of any bugs and to provide him with information about the investigations against him;

– that all these circumstances would highlight "a datum exactly contrary to the hypothesis (malicious, for the investigator) of indirect wiretaps, i.e., of investigations that through a false objective want to reach (and wiretap) obliquely a parliamentarian subject who was (and has remained) completely extraneous to them": rather, the circumstances in question would show that it was intended to "use the presence of the senator as a shield" in order to "obstruct the investigations," so that it could be affirmed that "[i]t is the senator who, objectively, moved in the direction of the investigations, not the investigations that moved in the direction of the senator";

– that the decision to request authorization to arrange wiretaps between those present in Hon. Sammartino's political office, which would have been situated "in some rooms of the same property where the office of Senator Sudano, the partner of the aforementioned suspect, was also found," would have represented "the natural and necessary development of the investigations, having been found during them how he was particularly careful in telephone conversations and how he preferred to meet his interlocutors at his office";

– that the request for wiretaps would have been preceded by careful checks on the title that allowed both Hon. Sammartino and Sen. Sudano to use the property, it also having been verified that the property would have been used predominantly by the former;

– that the Prosecutor’s Office would have logically hypothesized that both Hon. Sammartino and Sen. Sudano "had separate environments for the performance of study and preparation activities related to the exercise of their respective and different functions and for receiving people with whom they maintained relationships also by reason of their political activity";

– that with a first decree of April 12, 2019, the GIP of the Court of Catania authorized the interception of conversations between those present inside the personal office of Hon. Sammartino, "to be concretely identified during the installation of the bugs on the basis of unequivocal traces such as for example the presence of his personal effects";

– that in the night between July 25 and 26, 2019, the judicial police carried out the installation of the bugs in the property, however, signaling, in their service report of the following July 27, that they had identified not only the personal office of Hon. Sammartino, but also a second room and a meeting room that would have resulted in the exclusive use of Sammartino himself, as demonstrated by the presence of a blackboard with a graph showing the results of the last regional elections in which the suspect had been elected, as well as personal objects and documents addressed to him;

– that, furthermore, only in the premises apparently in use by Hon. Sammartino had the judicial police found that "all the existing electrical sockets were open and had exposed electrical wires as if, presumably, one wanted to thwart an interception activity by applying bugs inside the socket compartment";

– that, on the basis of this report, the Prosecutor’s Office requested from the GIP of the Court of Catania the authorization to extend the wiretaps also to the two further rooms identified by the judicial police as used only by Hon. Sammartino;

– that such further authorization was granted by the same GIP with an order of August 1, 2019;

– that in the time span of over fifteen months in which the interception activities took place, the presence of Sen. Sudano would have been recorded "exclusively for a few minutes and on only 8 occasions (of which 7 in the room in exclusive use [by Hon. Sammartino]), a number, indeed, infinitesimal compared to the presence and conversations that saw [Hon. Sammartino] as protagonist";

– that none of the intercepted conversations involving the parliamentarian would have been used against her or against other subjects, given the private and completely irrelevant nature of such conversations for the purposes of the ongoing investigation;

– that for this reason, the transcripts and audio files provided to the defense of Hon. Sammartino, "on the basis of current legislation and for the protection of the Senator's position," would have been redacted with reference to the conversations involving Sen. Sudano, "as it would have been for the position of any other subject who happened to be conversing, on irrelevant topics, with the suspects": and this in order to avoid "that a copy of the interceptions in which she was present (as being of no procedural relevance and/or prejudice to her) could circulate."

3.2.– According to the respondent, the renunciation of arranging wiretaps between those present in Hon. Sammartino's office "would have had as a consequence an improper extension of the guarantees of Art. 68 of the Constitution to subjects to whom such guarantee is not due and, correlatively, an undue compression of the prerogatives of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the performance of the dutiful investigative activity," with the consequent preferential treatment of such subjects, in violation of both the principle of equality and that of the mandatory nature of criminal prosecution.

On the strength of extensive citations of Judgment no. 227 of 2023 of this Court, the respondent observes that, pursuant to Art. 4 of Law no. 140 of June 20, 2003 (Provisions for the implementation of Article 68 of the Constitution as well as regarding criminal proceedings against high State officials), the prior authorization for the performance of wiretaps should be requested where the parliamentarian is identified or at least identifiable in advance as the recipient of the investigation act, even when the latter takes place by monitoring the users of other subjects; which did not happen in this case.

The respondent emphasizes, also, that the protection of the inviolability of the parliamentarian's communications would still have a derogatory nature with respect to the principles of Arts. 3, 24, and 112 of the Constitution, so that a restrictive interpretation would be required, to avoid "extending a functional prerogative to the exercise of the parliamentary function to subjects who, not having any title to it, would benefit from it only because they are close to, or stable visitors of, a Parliamentarian": which would lead to the identification of a category of citizens immune from investigations and from the criminal action itself, in a logic that "would characterize more a feudal state than a democratic Republic."

Following the petitioner's logic – continues the respondent Prosecutor’s Office –, even the telephone wiretaps ordered against Hon. Sammartino should have been previously authorized by Parliament, it being evident that the interceptions could have also intercepted his conversations with his partner; whereas a correct interpretation of the immunity in question would lead to excluding such a need, given that the interceptions in question were neither directly nor indirectly aimed at carrying out investigations against the parliamentarian.

3.3.– The respondent then excludes that the execution of the ambient interception activity configured a search, prohibited by Art. 68, second paragraph, of the Constitution, against Sen. Sudano.

Such activity would not have been, in fact, aimed at the search for the corpus delicti or things pertinent to the crime, according to what is provided by Art. 247 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The judicial police would have, instead, carried out "a merely executive and observational activity aimed exclusively at identifying the places suitable for installing the bugs for the interception activity within the perimeter [...] of the places in the exclusive availability [of Hon. Sammartino]," in accordance with what was authorized by the GIP.

The respondent recalls in this regard that the jurisprudence of legitimacy has deemed the doubt of constitutional legitimacy of Art. 266, paragraph 2, of the Code of Criminal Procedure in reference to Art. 14 of the Constitution manifestly unfounded, "because the placement of bugs inside a private home constitutes one of the natural methods of implementation of the interception instrument," and not a search (citing Court of Cassation, Fourth Criminal Section, Judgment September 28-December 30, 2005, no. 47331). And this even when the placement of bugs required, as in the specific case, a "preliminary verification aimed at identifying the environments in use by the suspect," within a property used also by other people extraneous to the investigations, even more so when it was a "subject who enjoys particular guarantees."

3.4.– As for the complained installation of video cameras on the public street, the respondent excludes that Art. 68 of the Constitution or any provision of the Code of Criminal Procedure required prior authorization.

3.5.– Nor, finally, would any subsequent authorization have been necessary for the use, in the proceedings against Sammartino, of the wiretaps that involved only the suspect and third parties other than Sen. Sudano.

As for those that involved Sen. Sudano, they could have qualified as "casual/occasional" and be, "as such, usable against people other than herself without the need for subsequent authorization." Which, however, would not have proven necessary in concrete terms, no conversation useful for the investigations, in which the senator took part, having been intercepted.

4.– The Chamber of Deputies also intervened in the proceedings, reserving any deduction for a supplementary brief and asking that the Senate's petition be accepted in the terms set forth by it.

5.– The GIP of the Court of Catania, to whom the petition and the order of this Court were duly notified, did not appear in the proceedings.

6.– In proximity to the hearing, the Senate of the Republic deposited a brief, in which it insisted on the acceptance of the conclusions already formulated in the initiating petition, contesting the arguments put forward by the respondent Prosecutor’s Office.

6.1.– The petitioner first believes that the assumption that the ordered wiretaps did not violate the Senate's constitutional prerogatives is not shareable, as Sen. Sudano was never the target of the investigation activities. The immunity referred to in Art. 68, third paragraph, of the Constitution would in fact be aimed at safeguarding "the functionality, the integrity of composition (in the case of de libertate measures) and the full decision-making autonomy, with respect to undue intrusions by the judiciary," of Parliament as a whole and not a privilege of the individual parliamentarian (citing Judgments no. 390 of 2007 and no. 170 of 2023 of this Court). Consequently, the provision in question would always preclude the possibility of ordering "wiretaps in the event that it already appears, from objective and ex ante elements, that with very high probability (due to the habitual nature of relationships or the availability and use of the premises) the listening will also involve a parliamentarian."

In particular, the circumstance that elements suitable for directing the investigations against Sen. Sudano had never arisen would have no merit. Such an eventuality would, in fact, be completely irrelevant, the "investigative act" being in any case suitable to strike the parliamentarian, as it is "unambiguously directed to intercept (also) her conversations," regardless of the will of the investigating authorities. "Once such a vulnus has been produced," in fact, "it would be of no use to expunge those interceptions from the proceedings because they are irrelevant: in fact, one would legitimize the listening in the absence of authorization from the Chambers, with the reservation (of the investigating body) to evaluate the content of the conversations; a sort of exploratory license that, even where animated by the best intentions, would be clearly inadmissible and contrary to the protection ratio enshrined in Art. 68, para. 3, of the Constitution."

In support of this interpretation, Judgment no. 1 of 2013 of this Court is cited, having as its object a conflict of attribution between State powers arising from the telephone interception activity carried out within the scope of criminal proceedings pending before the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Ordinary Court of Palermo, carried out on another person's user, in the course of which conversations of the President of the Republic were intercepted. Even with the awareness of the "difference in roles and functions exercised" by the President of the Republic with respect to a parliamentarian, the petitioner believes that the latter's position is, under the profile that matters here, "not dissimilar": also for the parliamentarian, in fact, "informal interlocutions represent an essential dimension of the exercise" of their function, configuring themselves as "instrumental to the formation of political and legislative will."

In the same sense would support the interpretation offered by this Court of Art. 68, third paragraph, of the Constitution according to which telephone logs are comparable to wiretaps, regardless of the parliamentarian's status as a suspect; and this because they are in any case suitable to open "glimpses of knowledge on the relationships of a parliamentarian," especially where such contacts are maintained with other parliamentarians, "for whom the same protection of the independence and freedom of the function operates and must operate" (citing Judgment no. 38 of 2019).

Precisely the "necessity to protect the confidentiality of the parliamentarian's conversations as such and not because they are potentially related to a crime or because their author is subject to investigation" would have led this Court to note incidentally how the authorization of a preventive nature is also required in cases in which the parliamentarian is the "recipient of the investigative act," even just as an offended party or otherwise informed about the facts (citing Judgment no. 390 of 2007 of this Court). In this sense, given the merely exemplary character of the list made by this Court, what matters would be solely the circumstance that, "in all probability, the parliamentarian (whatever procedural qualification they possess) will enter the action range of the interception ordered."

Such an interpretive landing would have been "made its own also by the Court of Cassation," where it affirmed that "'must be previously authorized the wiretaps to which the parliamentarian is subjected not only as a suspect, but also as an offended party or informed about the facts, on users or in places belonging to the political subject or in their availability (so, specifically, Sec. 2, no. 8739 of 11/16/2012, dep. 2013, La Monica, Rv. 254548), and this even when the interceptions are carried out by placing the habitual interlocutors of the member of Parliament under control in such a context as to lead to believe that the wiretaps are indirectly aimed at intercepting the conversations of the parliamentarian'" (citing Court of Cassation, Sixth Criminal Section, Judgment September 22-November 22, 2016, no. 49538).

Only if interpreted in this way could the guarantee referred to in Art. 68, third paragraph, of the Constitution ensure "a concrete and effective confidentiality of communications as such and not in function of their irrelevance for the investigations, or of the attribution to the parliamentarian of the qualification of suspect, or of the existence of clues against them." One would avoid, moreover, in this way, the paradox of excluding from the immunity precisely the one who, resulting "more upright and deserving," appears extraneous to any crime.

6.2.– With reference then to the injury of Art. 68, second paragraph, of the Constitution, it is finally reiterated that there would have been a violation of the parliamentarian's domicile. The decision of the Court of Cassation, invoked by the respondent Prosecutor’s Office, which deemed a question of constitutional legitimacy of Art. 266 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, in the part in which it does not regulate the methods of limitation of the inviolability of the domicile (Cass. no. 47331 of 2005), manifestly unfounded, would be irrelevant. The Court of Cassation would have in fact limited itself to recalling how the discipline regarding wiretaps would impose a balancing between Arts. 14 and 15 of the Constitution and Art. 112 of the Constitution. In the case now under examination, it would instead be necessary to decide whether the term "search" can be understood as "all those forms of interference in the private and domiciliary sphere that consist of an inspection and documentation of the places carried out by police forces on behalf of the Judicial Authority."

The petitioner responds to the question in the affirmative, believing that the parliamentarian's domicile must be protected from any inspection-type access, where the prior authorization of the relevant Chamber does not exist. Otherwise, the effect of unduly reducing the perimeter of the constitutional guarantee would be produced, through an interpretation that would delegate to ordinary law the extension of its operation. It would be necessary, therefore, to reason "in substantial terms," in consideration of the fact that "the 'local search' 'implies an inspection and documentation activity'" (citing on this point Court of Cassation, Third Criminal Section, Judgment April 9-June 10, 2025, no. 21864).

"Indifferent" would therefore be the circumstance that a given search activity "is aimed at finding things pertinent to the crime, or elements to be able to deduce the traceability of the use of the rooms to certain subjects, as happened in the case in point." Interference in the domiciliary sphere of a parliamentarian would in any case be considered incompatible with a systematic interpretation of the prerogatives referred to in Art. 68 of the Constitution (in this sense is again cited Judgment of this Court no. 1 of 2013).

On the other hand, this Court would have already expressed itself with Judgment no. 58 of 2004 in an extensive sense regarding the ratio of Art. 68, second paragraph, of the Constitution, and likewise the Court of Cassation would have offered a broad interpretation of the immunity, which would extend beyond the specific provision of the Code of Criminal Procedure regarding home searches (Cass. no. 11170 of 2009). Similar indications, finally, would be deducible also from the resolutions of the Board for Elections and Parliamentary Immunity of the Senate and from the preparatory works of the constitutional reform of Art. 68, then realized with Constitutional Law no. 3 of October 29, 1993 (Amendment of Article 68 of the Constitution).

7.– The Chamber of Deputies has also deposited a brief in support of the reasons deduced in the petition.

Regarding the injury of Art. 68, second paragraph, of the Constitution, the Chamber observes first of all that the entry into the premises of the political office of Sen. Sudano could not fail to be traced back to the concept of "home search," having to consider the same referable to any activity that implies "the violation of the domicile of a parliamentarian" (on the point is again cited Cass. no. 11170 of 2009). This last notion would include, on the other hand, every place where the parliamentarian exercises their political activity stably, and therefore not only their residence, but also those further spaces "identifiable as domicile, precisely in view of the protection of the interest of Parliament to the full unfolding of its autonomy" (citing also in this case Judgment no. 58 of 2004 of this Court). Furthermore, the Chamber argues that the parliamentary prerogative referred to in the second paragraph of Art. 68 of the Constitution would have an objective character, regardless of both the subjective perception of those who carry out the intrusion into the domicile, and the concrete outcome of this.

All this considered, the immunity referred to in Art. 68, second paragraph, of the Constitution could not be limited to the case referred to in Art. 247 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Reasoning otherwise, the very purpose of the constitutional guarantee would be frustrated, as one would end up making the scope of protection dependent on the qualification, in the abstract manipulable, of the act that allows access to the places where the parliamentarian exercises their functions. It would consequently be "irrelevant" to establish whether or not access is aimed at the search for evidence of a crime.

The survey of the places, carried out in order to establish which spaces were in the exclusive use of the senator's partner, would imply access to environments that are qualifiable as the parliamentarian's domicile. Proof of this would be not only the presence of the name of Sen. Sudano on the door and on the intercom, as well as the existence of a loan-for-use contract formally registered to her, but also the use of the property by the parliamentarian to carry out her political activity.

Also violated would be the immunity referred to in Art. 68, third paragraph, of the Constitution, as no authorization was requested in advance from the relevant Chamber for the execution of the wiretaps. In the jurisprudence of legitimacy and in the constitutional jurisprudence itself, in fact, the discipline of prior authorization should find application "not only every time wiretaps are subjected – as in this case – to users or places belonging to the political subject or in their availability (direct wiretaps) but also when they are users or places of different subjects, which can however 'be presumed to be frequented by the parliamentarian'" (citing on the point the Judgments of this Court no. 114 of 2010 and no. 390 of 2007, as well as Court of Cassation, Second Criminal Section, Judgment November 16, 2012-February 22, 2013, no. 8739). In the guarantee of Art. 68, third paragraph, of the Constitution, moreover, would also fall "indirect" wiretaps, aimed at intercepting the parliamentarian by placing the users of their habitual interlocutors under control.

In the opinion of the Chamber of Deputies, the Public Prosecutor’s Office was fully aware that the premises in which the devices aimed at intercepting conversations between those present were to be placed were in the direct availability of Sen. Sudano, as well as being the seat of her political activity. In this regard, it would be of no avail to object that the investigative acts were legitimate as they were directed against a third party following a distinction between the different environments, excluding those in use by the parliamentarian. Such an activity would, in fact, be "artificial," "considered that the property [would be] used by both in a promiscuous manner." It would not be understood, then, on the basis of what elements the meeting room was attributed exclusively to the partner of Sen. Sudano. Finally, there would not have been in concrete terms an "effective selection of the places, considered that the parliamentarian's activity was directly monitored, as demonstrated by the video surveillance footage at the entrance of the political office."

Considered in Law

8.– With the petition indicated in the heading, the Senate of the Republic promoted a conflict of attribution between powers of the State against the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Court of Catania, complaining in substance that it requested the GIP to authorize, and then executed, wiretaps between those present in a property unit used as a political office by the then Senator Valeria Sudano, without requesting the authorization of the relevant Chamber pursuant to Art. 68 of the Constitution.

In the petitioner's opinion, this would have resulted in a violation not only of the third, but also of the second paragraph of Art. 68 of the Constitution, since the clandestine entry into the property by the judicial police to install the bugs would have integrated a "home [...] search" pursuant to the constitutional provision in question, with the consequent necessity, also under this profile, of a prior authorization by the relevant Chamber.

The Senate also complains that video recordings were carried out by means of cameras installed in proximity to the entrance door of the property unit.

Consequently, the petitioner asks that the "nullity of the decrees authorizing audio and video wiretaps and in any case the inadmissibility of the interceptions thus acquired" be declared.

9.– Preliminarily, the admissibility of the conflict must be confirmed, for the reasons already set forth in Order no. 133 of 2025, to be considered here in full incorporated.

10.– On the merits, the petition is not well-founded.

11.– The facts of the case are derived both from the initiating petition and from the act of appearance of the respondent Prosecutor’s Office, accompanied by both – in particular for what concerns this last act – with voluminous attachments.

They are undisputed between the parties. The respondent has, indeed, clarified and significantly expanded the narrative made in the initiating petition, without, however, denying any of the circumstances represented therein; and for its part, the petitioner has not contested – neither in the reply brief nor at the hearing – any of the specific circumstances deduced by the respondent.

Referring for further details to the summary already made of the deductions of the petitioner and the respondent (supra, respectively 1.1. and 3.1.), it is convenient here to summarize the following factual circumstances, of which the existence is not controversial, but – solely – the legal qualification pursuant to Art. 68 of the Constitution:

(a) the wiretaps between those present of which the petitioner complains were requested and ordered in the framework of an investigation in which the commission of corruption conduct by Hon. Luca Rosario Luigi Sammartino, a deputy to the Sicilian Regional Assembly and Sen. Sudano's partner, was hypothesized;

(b) they were ordered in three rooms located in a property unit of 358 square meters, articulated on two floors and composed of 12.5 cadastral rooms, which at the time of the events hosted the political offices of Hon. Sammartino himself and of Sen. Sudano, who both frequented the property unit itself regularly, as results from the video surveillance activated by the judicial police outside the property;

(c) on the entrance door of the property appeared both the surname of Hon. "Sammartino" and the surname of Sen. "Sudano" (as emerges from the photographs present among the documentation in the files in Attachment 2 to the Senate's petition deposited in the admissibility phase);

(d) the property, owned by Hon. Sammartino's uncle, had been granted on loan to the latter with a first contract of March 18, 2013, duly registered (Attachment no. 15 to the act of appearance in court of the Prosecutor’s Office);

(e) with a second contract of October 26, 2018, also duly registered, the same property was granted on loan also to Sen. Sudano (Attachment no. 2 to the Senate's petition deposited in the admissibility phase and attachment no. 15 to the act of appearance in court of the Prosecutor’s Office);

(f) with the first decree for which the petitioner asks that nullity be declared, issued on April 12, 2019, on the compliant request of the Prosecutor’s Office, the GIP of the Court of Catania authorized the interception of conversations between those present "inside the room – located in the office used as a political office by the suspect Sammartino, in the documents generalized, located at [omitted] – inside which there is the workstation/desk that will be verified to be in use by the suspect Sammartino and that will be specifically identified during the installation operations by the operating Judicial Police" (Attachment no. 6 to the act of appearance in court of the Prosecutor’s Office);

(g) with the service report of July 27, 2019, the judicial police gave account of having executed such a decree, highlighting among other things having "verified that the property used as a political office is composed of numerous rooms on two levels" and specifying having "ascertained that at least three rooms are used by the suspect": an office room on the floor of access to the property "with a workstation/desk"; a room, located on the same floor, "used as a meeting-conference room"; a room on the upper floor "with a workstation/desk." In each of these premises, the operators installed peripherals for ambient wiretaps (Attachment no. 2 to the Senate's petition deposited in the admissibility phase and Attachment no. 7 to the act of appearance in court of the Prosecutor’s Office);

(h) in the service note attached to the report mentioned above, the operators recorded having entered the property unit in question in the night between July 25 and 26, 2019, providing the following description of the verifications and operations carried out: "Having accessed the premises of the aforementioned office, it was possible to notice how the entrance was composed of two large open rooms, inside which the waiting room and two workstations, one for each room, for the office staff were created. Continuing, one gains access to a corridor on which several doors overlook. The first on the right for those who enter allows access to a room used as a meeting-conference room, inside which there was a television and a wall blackboard on which a table chart was drawn, relating to the last regional elections in which Hon. Sammartino was elected and showing the number of votes obtained in different municipalities of the province of Catania. Continuing always on the same corridor, the room used as Hon. Sammartino's office was identified. The attributability of the room to the suspect's availability was fixed by the presence, inside the room, of copious paper documentation addressed to the regional parliamentarian, as well as numerous objects and photographs referable to him. Also on the upper floor of the aforementioned office, a second room was identified, more reserved than the first, whose availability by the suspect was revealed by the same elements indicated for the first office. In the two rooms used as the suspect's office, an interesting investigative datum was found, consisting of having verified that all the existing electrical sockets were open and had exposed electrical wires, as if, presumably, one wanted to thwart an interception activity by applying bugs inside the socket compartment. This datum appeared exclusively inside the aforementioned offices, all the other rooms of the office had the sockets in order. It is also communicated that during the inspection operations of the site, on the ground floor of the office, the office in confirmed use by Sen. Valeria Sudano was also identified, which was not affected by any type of operation" (again, Attachment no. 2 to the Senate's petition and Attachment no. 7 to the act of appearance in court of the Prosecutor’s Office);

(i) on the compliant request of the Prosecutor’s Office, with decree of August 1, 2019 – for which likewise the petitioner asks that nullity be declared – the GIP of Catania authorized the public prosecutor to extend the wiretaps also to the further two rooms identified by the judicial police during the access described above, and in particular in the "conference and meeting room" located on the entrance floor and in the office located on the upper floor (Attachment no. 8 to the act of appearance in court of the Prosecutor’s Office);

(j) the interceptions carried out over the many months that followed in the three rooms concerned for the most part conversations of the suspect Hon. Sammartino, Sen. Sudano's voice having been recorded – according to what was reported by the respondent Prosecutor’s Office and by the Senate's own defense (page 5 of the reply brief) – only on eight occasions, against a very high number of conversations that involved Hon. Sammartino.

12.– The petitioner assumes therefore that the Prosecutor’s Office violated both the third and the second paragraph of Art. 68 of the Constitution, requesting and then carrying out wiretaps between those present in a property unit used as a political office by Sen. Sudano, as well as ordering the entry of the judicial police into the same property in order to install the bugs. Furthermore, the petitioner complains about the video recordings carried out outside the property in order to monitor the entrances to it.

This last profile, however, was not taken up in the reply brief or in the discussion at the hearing, and is not in effect supported by any legal argumentation, the petitioner not having indicated for what specific reasons the external video recordings of the property can be traced back, alternatively, to the notion of "interception" or of "search" that appear respectively in the third and second paragraph of Art. 68 of the Constitution. So that this profile seems to constitute, more than an autonomous motive of censure, a simple argument ad colorandum, reinforcing the two essential grievances of the petition, represented by the violation of the prohibition to subject Sen. Sudano to wiretaps and to searches without the authorization of the relevant Chamber.

The analytical examination of such grievances requires that three distinct questions be addressed:

(a) whether the controversial wiretaps constituted "direct" wiretaps of Sen. Sudano (infra, 13);

(b) whether, in case of a negative answer to the first question, they were in any case qualifiable as "indirect" wiretaps of the same, so as to require likewise – according to the constant jurisprudence of this Court – a prior authorization of the relevant Chamber (infra, 14);

(c) whether, in any case, access to the property unit by the judicial police to identify the rooms in use by Hon. Sammartino and to install the bugs there constituted a home search to the detriment of Sen. Sudano (infra, 15).

13.– As for the question sub (a), the petitioner's central argument is that the property unit in which the wiretaps were carried out was used as a political office by Sen. Sudano: which is effectively undisputed between the parties. The right to use the property unit free of charge had, likewise, been conferred by the owner of the property to Sen. Sudano by virtue of a loan contract of October 2018 (and therefore dating back to a time some months earlier than the first decree authorizing the wiretaps, dated April 12, 2019); on the plaque of the door appeared the name of Sen. Sudano; from the results of the video recordings carried out outside the property it is inferred that she habitually used the property unit; and the parties agree that her voice was recorded on eight occasions.

Specularly, the respondent Prosecutor’s Office's central argument is that the same property unit was also used as a political office by Hon. Sammartino: a circumstance, this too, peaceful between the parties. Just as the circumstance that Hon. Sammartino was also the holder of an autonomous loan contract on the property, stipulated in 2013 and apparently never terminated, appears uncontested, so much so that – according to what was reported by the Prosecutor’s Office – an electricity utility relative to the property would have been registered to him still in 2023. The continuous use of the property unit by Hon. Sammartino results, on the other hand, for tabulas from the circumstance of the great number of ambient wiretaps that concern him, carried out in the rooms where the bugs were placed: rooms that the respondent Prosecutor’s Office assumes were used in an exclusive manner by Hon. Sammartino for the performance of his political activity.

13.1.– This Court finds itself, for the first time, declining the immunity ensured by Art. 68, third paragraph, of the Constitution with respect to the specific hypothesis (regulated in the ordinary way by Art. 266, paragraph 2, of the Code of Criminal Procedure) of wiretaps between those present arranged in a place protected by Art. 614 of the Penal Code, as is certainly the political office of the parliamentarian, which integrates a "domicile" of the same (Judgment no. 58 of 2004, point 3 of the Considered in Law).

13.2.– The jurisprudence formed so far regarding wiretaps has concerned telephone wiretaps and, in one case (Judgment no. 157 of 2023), interceptions of communications between those present through the insertion of an IT captor on a telephone device.

It moves from the assumption that the listening of conversations through a telephone user registered to the parliamentarian and used by him integrates a "direct" interception of the parliamentarian himself, as such certainly prohibited by Art. 68, third paragraph, of the Constitution – as well as by Art. 4, paragraph 1, of Law no. 140 of 2003 – in the absence of prior authorization of the relevant Chamber.

It must therefore be agreed with the petitioner that the subjective intention of the investigating authority to investigate the possible commission of crimes (also) by the parliamentarian is not relevant for the purpose of verifying the existence of a "direct" interception against the parliamentarian. Indeed, a passage of Judgment no. 390 of 2007, to which one of the first analyses of Law no. 140 of 2003 is owed, could have given rise to such a doubt, where it was stated that "the constitutional norm prohibits subjecting to interception, without authorization, not the users of the parliamentarian, but his communications: what counts – for the purposes of the operativity of the regime of prior authorization established by Art. 68, third paragraph, of the Constitution – is not the ownership or availability of the intercepted user, but the direction of the investigation act" (italics added). However, the immediately subsequent clarification – "[i]f the latter is aimed, in concrete terms, at accessing the sphere of the parliamentarian's communications, the unauthorized interception is illegitimate, regardless of the fact that the proceeding concerns third parties or that the users subjected to control belong to third parties" – removes every equivocation, highlighting that the concern of this Court was, at that time, essentially that of extending the immunity to wiretaps ordered on users other than those registered to the parliamentarian, but with the aim of investigating possible crimes of the parliamentarian. A hypothesis, this last one, which the same pronouncement qualified as "indirect" wiretaps, for which also prior authorization is necessary (on the point, infra, 14).

Subsequent jurisprudence has expressly clarified that "direct" interception remains qualifiable as such simply by reason of the ownership and effective use of the intercepted user (Judgment no. 38 of 2019, point 2.1. of the Considered in Law), while the criterion of the "direction of the investigation act" comes into relief only for the purpose of distinguishing between "indirect" wiretaps, on one side, and "casual" or "occasional" ones, on the other. So much so that the interception remains direct even where the investigating authorities place the parliamentarian's phone under control for the purpose of acquiring information on a crime attributed (exclusively) to a third person: not by chance, the same Judgment no. 390 of 2007 had underlined that the guarantee of Art. 4 of Law no. 140 of 2003 also extends, "by widespread conviction," to cases in which the parliamentarian appears to the investigating authorities as an offended party, or in any case as a person informed about the facts (point 2 of the Considered in Law).

13.3.– The transposition of these principles to the theme of wiretaps between those present arranged in a place indicated by Art. 614 of the Penal Code encounters, however, an evident difficulty: while the phone – and in particular the cell phone – is ordinarily used by only one person, a property unit is frequently used by multiple people.

Which poses, physiologically, the problem of the identification of reasonable limits to the extension of the parliamentarian's immunity with respect to wiretaps between those present inside a property unit of which he is the holder and which he has in effective use: and this for the purpose of avoiding the obvious risk that the simultaneous presence of others' titles of enjoyment on it, or its use in common with other people, could also put the non-parliamentarian beyond the reach of investigation acts expectable against any co-associate who does not enjoy parliamentary immunity (on the need to avoid "improper extensive readings" of parliamentary immunities, as they entail "a derogation from the principle of equal treatment before the jurisdiction," Judgment no. 170 of 2023, point 4.5. of the Considered in Law; in similar terms, Judgments no. 38 of 2019, point 2.2. of the Considered in Law, no. 74 of 2013, point 3.1. of the Considered in Law, and no. 390 of 2007, point 5.5. of the Considered in Law).

13.4.– Now, according to the constant constitutional jurisprudence, the immunity in question aims not so much to protect the confidentiality of the parliamentarian's communications as such (which remains protected by Art. 15 of the Constitution, at parity with what happens for every other co-associate), as the "safeguard of parliamentary functions: it being intended to prevent that the listening of reserved conversations by the judicial authority can be unduly aimed at affecting the performance of the elective mandate, becoming a source of conditioning and pressure on the free expression of the activity" (Judgment no. 390 of 2007, point 5.2. of the Considered in Law; analogously, Judgments no. 117 of 2024, point 3.1. of the Considered in Law, no. 170 of 2023, points 4.4. and 4.5. of the Considered in Law, no. 38 of 2019, point 2.4. of the Considered in Law, as well as Order no. 129 of 2020).

From this follows, in the opinion of this Court, that the immunity referred to in Art. 68, third paragraph, of the Constitution, when declined with respect to wiretaps between those present inside the places indicated in Art. 614 of the Penal Code, cannot but refer to the places where the parliamentarian in concrete terms must be able to freely perform, in reserved form, activities related to the exercise of his parliamentary mandate, even independently of his formal ownership of real or personal rights of enjoyment over the places themselves.

Similar activities are certainly carried out by the parliamentarian in the offices made available to him by the relevant Chamber, as well as in the premises that he has adapted as his political office, wherever located. But there is no doubt – to take up an argument raised with particular emphasis in the oral discussion by the Senate's defense – that activities related to the exercise of the parliamentary function can be carried out, and are normally carried out, by the parliamentarian also inside his home, regardless of the formal ownership of a specific right of enjoyment of the same, and regardless of the circumstance that the home is shared with, or used together with other people.

Inside such spaces, therefore, the interception of conversations between those present could not be considered allowed without the prior authorization of the relevant Chamber.

13.5.– Different is, however, the situation all when the parliamentarian uses only a part of a property unit, which also hosts other people for the performance of activities that have nothing to do with the exercise of the parliamentary function: as in the case of an associated professional studio, or – as in the affair now under examination – of a large property unit, different from the home and characterized by the presence of spaces used separately by the parliamentarian and by third persons. The possible ownership of rights of enjoyment over the entire unit by the parliamentarian does not exclude, in similar hypotheses, that in concrete terms the parliamentarian uses only a part of the premises for activities related to the exercise of his functions, and that other people use in exclusive way – based themselves also on autonomous titles of enjoyment or simply in a mere factual way – other rooms of the same property.

In similar hypotheses, the interception between those present must be considered indeed prohibited, in the absence of prior authorization of the relevant Chamber, in the premises used in an exclusive way, or at least also by the parliamentarian; but it will not encounter constitutional obstacles with respect to the premises used in an exclusive way by other subjects, so as to avoid improper extensions of the immunity, no longer covered by the ratio of the same and contrasting with the principle of equality of all co-associates before the law (and more precisely, the norms of criminal proceedings).

It will naturally be up to the proceeding judicial authority to adopt every necessary caution to identify with precision the rooms used exclusively by the suspect not covered by the parliamentary immunity, avoiding thus the risk of installing bugs in rooms in which also the parliamentarian performs activities related to the exercise of his functions; remaining firm that, in the event that the identification carried out ex ante reveals itself ex post not correct – in particular, when the wiretaps executed demonstrate that the rooms where the bugs are found were in fact used also by the parliamentarian –, the public prosecutor must immediately suspend the operations.

13.6.– In the case now under examination, this Court does not believe that the interception between those present requested and executed by the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Court of Catania is qualifiable as "direct."

The interception was, indeed, arranged in three rooms located in a property unit object, in its entirety, of a loan contract registered to Sen. Sudano, and used in part by the same senator. However, the interception was requested and obtained by the Prosecutor’s Office, originally, in the only room used by Hon. Sammartino as a political office, on the basis – moreover – of an autonomous title of enjoyment, ensured by a previous loan contract that does not appear to have ever been terminated. The authorization was then extended, upon request of the Prosecutor’s Office, in the light of the outcome of the access operated by the judicial police in execution of a first measure of the GIP, during which the operators verified the exclusive use, by the same Hon. Sammartino, of only three rooms (compared to the twelve of which the property unit in question is composed, for a surface, as said, of over 350 square meters), on the basis of the external indices punctually described in the service note of July 27, 2019, consisting in substance in the presence of objects uniquely referable to the suspect.

Such verification found confirmation ex post in the results of the wiretaps activated there, which recorded only on eight occasions, in the course of a year and a half, the voice of Sen. Sudano, sometimes (according to what was reported by the Prosecutor’s Office, and not contested by the petitioner) coming from adjacent rooms, against a very high number of conversations that had engaged the suspect. Which attests to the adequacy of the cautions adopted by the judicial police, in the execution phase of the measure, to avoid that the wiretaps were executed in rooms habitually used also by Sen. Sudano, or even in exclusive way by the latter.

14.– That the controversial wiretaps are not qualifiable as "direct" against Sen. Sudano does not exclude, moreover, that they may, hypothetically, qualify as indirectly aimed against the same, and as such reveal themselves in any case illegitimate in the absence of a prior authorization of the relevant Chamber, on the basis of the constant jurisprudence of this Court.

To such a possibility – which constitutes the object of the question sub (b) – alludes clearly the same petitioner, when it insists on the circumstance that Sen. Sudano was linked by an affectionate relationship and cohabitation with the suspect Hon. Sammartino: a circumstance, this one, well known to the Prosecutor’s Office, and which made it foreseeable – in terms, indeed, of "very high probability" (supra, 6.1.) – that the wiretaps ordered against Hon. Sammartino would have interested also the parliamentarian.

According to the petitioner, the requirement established by the jurisprudence of this Court, according to which "indirect" wiretaps would be those aimed at the "main purpose of knowing the content of the conversations and communications of the parliamentarian" (Judgment no. 227 of 2023, point 7 of the Considered in Law), could not be excluded by a "simple formal act," such as the registration of the crime report against a subject other than the parliamentarian, whenever the "certain habitualness" of the relationship of the latter with the suspect person makes, in fact, highly probable the capturing and recording of conversations that involve also the parliamentarian.

14.1.– As just recalled, the notion of "indirect" wiretaps has been elaborated by the jurisprudence of this Court for the purpose of avoiding circumventions of the constitutional immunity, so as to extend the authorization regime provided for by Art. 68, third paragraph, of the Constitution and by Art. 4 of Law no. 140 of 2003 also to wiretaps which, while not being ordered on a telephone user registered to the parliamentarian or in any case in his full availability, are in effect aimed at acquiring information potentially relevant for the purposes of a criminal charge against the same parliamentarian. At the same time, the notion of "indirect" interception is functional, in constitutional jurisprudence, to mark the boundary with "casual" or – according to the denomination adopted in the most recent pronouncements – "occasional" interceptions of the parliamentarian, for which the regime of prior authorization established by the Constitution does not operate, but for whose use in proceedings only against the parliamentarian Art. 6 of Law no. 140 of 2003 (as modified by Judgment no. 390 of 2007) requires subsequent authorization by the relevant Chamber.

The notion of "indirect" wiretaps was for the first time subject to extensive examination by this Court precisely in Judgment no. 390 of 2007. In such pronouncement, the need was highlighted to avoid circumventions of the guarantee of prior authorization through the extension of the requirement of prior authorization whenever the judicial authority intends to subject to wiretaps "telephone users or places belonging formally to third parties – but which can be presumed to be frequented by the parliamentarian," and this with the intention of "intercepting, in reality, the communications of the latter" (point 5.3. of the Considered in Law; in similar sense, Judgment no. 38 of 2019, point 2.1. of the Considered in Law).

Judgment no. 390 of 2007, instead, deemed to fall outside the scope of the guarantee of prior authorization "the 'casual' or 'fortuitous' wiretaps, with respect to which – precisely because of the unforeseen nature of the parliamentarian's interlocution – the judicial authority could not, even if it wanted to, provide itself in advance with the placet of the relevant Chamber" (point 5.3. of the Considered in Law, italics added). With respect to these wiretaps, Art. 6, paragraph 2, of Law no. 140 of 2003 provided – even in the silence of Art. 68, third paragraph, of the Constitution on the point – a regime of subsequent authorization of the relevant Chamber for their utilization in the procedural seat; a regime that the same Judgment no. 390 of 2007 established not to be applicable in the hypothesis in which they must be used against subjects other than the parliamentarian.

14.2.– The recent constitutional jurisprudence has, moreover, provided significant clarifications with respect to what was affirmed by this Court starting from Judgment no. 390 of 2007, in the framework of a comprehensive clarification of the relations between the "preventive" authorization ex Art. 4 and the "subsequent" one ex Art. 6 of Law no. 140 of 2003. Clarifications with which the Senate's defense fails to confront itself.

"The habitual nature of the conversations between the suspect subject and the parliamentarian" – observed in particular Judgment no. 227 of 2023 – "is not in itself sufficient to make the latter the recipient of a specific investigation activity, elevating him to the target of the investigation act; nor, therefore, does the mere foreseeability of the interlocution between the suspect and the parliamentarian make it necessary to acquire the authorization referred to in Art. 4 of Law no. 140 of 2003 so that the interception activity on the first's user can be continued" (point 8.2. of the Considered in Law). What counts – reiterated the pronouncement, citing the immediate precedent represented by Judgment no. 157 of 2023 (point 9.2. of the Considered in Law) – is only the "recurrence of the intent, associated with the 'direction of the investigation act,' to reach directly the parliamentarian's conversations."

The proof of such intent does not presuppose that the parliamentarian is also registered formally in the registry of suspects. Such a requirement could give rise to abusive practices by investigators, who would thus remain free to carry out investigations against parliamentarians simply by omitting to register them in the registry. However, as clarified again by Judgment no. 227 of 2023, an "indirect" interception of the parliamentarian, in need of prior authorization, presupposes in any case the demonstration of "investigative addresses clearly and unambiguously aimed at deepening his possible criminal responsibility" (point 8.1. of the Considered in Law); demonstration to be carried out "in a comprehensive and non-atomistic way, taking into account that the identification of the intent pursued by the proceeding authority would be evident only if a strategy aimed at penetrating the parliamentarian's listening sphere were ascertained, without the respect of the procedures provided by Art. 4 of Law no. 140 of 2003" (Judgment no. 157 of 2023, point 9.1. of the Considered in Law). Such a demonstration, clarified again Judgment no. 157 of 2023, must be supported "by elements characterized by particular evidence" (point 9.2. of the Considered in Law).

When, instead, "the defect of such strategy is proven by the absence of univocity of the individual investigation acts to pursue such objective, it must be considered that the entry of the parliamentarian into the perimeter of the wiretaps falls within the scope of Art. 6 of Law no. 140 of 2003, with the possible and episodic emergence of his communications among those subject to interception not preventing this" (Judgment no. 157 of 2023, point 9.1. of the Considered in Law).

14.3.– In conclusion: from the recent jurisprudence of this Court clearly emerges that, when the parliamentarian's conversations are intercepted in the framework of wiretaps ordered against third parties and are not referable to an investigative strategy aimed at acquiring elements of guilt against the same parliamentarian, such conversations must be considered not already "indirect," but "occasional" (for this terminology, defined "more appropriate" compared to the notion of "casual" wiretaps, Judgment no. 157 of 2023, point 4.1. of the Considered in Law, as well as Judgments no. 227 of 2023, point 7 of the Considered in Law and no. 117 of 2024, point 3.1. of the Considered in Law); and this even if the possibility of intercepting the parliamentarian's communications were foreseeable ex ante by the investigating authorities, by reason of the frequency of relations between the suspect person and the parliamentarian.

The contrary solution would end up, in effect, sacrificing unreasonably the interest of the legal order (traceable at least to Art. 112 of the Constitution) to the ascertainment of crimes committed by a suspect person who does not enjoy parliamentary immunity, whenever they have frequent, habitual contacts or hypothetically even cohabitation with a parliamentarian, in violation also of the same principle of equality between all co-associates before the law and its application.

The parliamentarian's immunity whose conversations are in this way intercepted remains, on the other hand, protected under a dual and concurrent profile. In the first place, by the obligation of destruction of the relative minutes and transcripts referred to in Art. 6, paragraph 1, of Law no. 140 of 2003, where they prove irrelevant for the purposes of the proceeding; and in the second place by the mechanism of subsequent authorization referred to in paragraph 2 of the same Art. 6, which entrusts to the relevant Chamber the evaluation of whether to authorize the use of the parliamentarian's wiretaps in the proceedings in which his conversations, even if "occasionally" intercepted (that is, outside of a preventive strategy against him), have revealed ex post clues of guilt against him, inducing the public prosecutor to formulate criminal accusations against him (in this sense, Judgment no. 157 of 2023, point 10.1. of the Considered in Law).

There remains firm, finally, the possibility that an interception activity, legitimately started against third parties and in whose ambit the parliamentarian's communications were "occasionally" intercepted, can – starting from a certain date onwards – highlight a "change of objectives" of the investigation (Judgments no. 117 of 2024, point 8.1. of the Considered in Law; no. 227 of 2023, point 8.1. of the Considered in Law; no. 113 of 2010, point 3.3. of the Considered in Law), with consequent finalization of the latter – following the information accidentally learned from the parliamentarian's conversations – to verify his possible criminal responsibility. Starting from this moment, subsequent wiretaps that concern the parliamentarian should be qualified as "indirect" (rather than as merely occasional), with consequent nullity and radical inadmissibility where the public prosecutor has not requested from the relevant Chamber the authorization pursuant to Art. 4 of Law no. 140 of 2003 for the continuation of the same wiretaps (thus part of the controversial wiretaps in the case decided by the cited Judgment no. 227 of 2023, points 8.1. and following).

14.4.– In the light of such principles, it must be excluded that the (numerically meager) wiretaps that interested Sen. Sudano are qualifiable as "indirect," and were therefore in need of prior authorization by the relevant Chamber.

The relationship of cohabitation between the same and the suspect Hon. Sammartino, and even more the circumstance that both stably used different rooms of the same property unit to host the respective political offices made, indeed, easily foreseeable for the respondent Prosecutor’s Office that on some occasion also conversations of Hon. Sammartino with Sen. Sudano could be intercepted and recorded. But this is not enough to qualify these (rare) wiretaps as "indirect": for the purpose of such qualification it would be necessary, also, to demonstrate the existence of an investigative strategy objectively aimed at acquiring elements of guilt against the same parliamentarian.

Such a strategy does not emerge in any way from the circumstances of fact summarized (supra, 12), the Prosecutor’s Office never having hypothesized the commission of crimes, or in any case any involvement in them, by Sen. Sudano. Which marks, among other things, an essential difference compared to the case decided with Judgment no. 227 of 2023, in which – instead – the information collected through wiretaps ordered against third parties had been placed as the basis of the charges formulated by the investigating authorities against the same parliamentarian.

15.– There remains, at this point, to resolve the question sub (c): ossia whether, as argued by the petitioner, the access of the judicial police to the property unit and the activity of verification of the effective availability of the rooms by Hon. Sammartino, carried out in the night between July 25 and 26, 2019, have or have not integrated a home search to the detriment of Sen. Sudano, not previously authorized by the Senate, in violation of Art. 68, second paragraph, of the Constitution.

The Senate's pleading is based, in summary, on the following arguments:

– the offices used as a political office by a parliamentarian constitute their "domicile" pursuant to Art. 68, second paragraph, of the Constitution;

– the notion of "search" pursuant to this constitutional norm cannot be confined to accesses in a domicile aimed at searching for the corpus delicti or things pertinent to it, according to the notion provided by Art. 247 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, extending instead to every "clandestine entry" into the parliamentarian's domicile and to the consequent activity aimed at installing interception devices, which includes in particular the "careful search for the most suitable place to position them" and the "search for objects or documents" that can link the individual space to the suspect or to the parliamentarian;

– such a notion would correspond to that extracted by the jurisprudence of legitimacy regarding the parliamentary immunity in question, by virtue of which "all those activities that involve the violation of the domicile of a parliamentarian and which, with an 'ex ante' evaluation, can indifferently lead to the finding of things or traces of the crime, even if in concrete terms they are not found and in any case things pertinent to the crime are not seized" would fall into the meaning of home search pursuant to Art. 68 of the Constitution (Cass. no. 11170 of 2009).

In support of such pleading the petitioner's defense evokes also the only precedent of this Court which confronted ex professo with the theme of home searches against the parliamentarian, Judgment no. 58 of 2004, in which it was deemed that the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Ordinary Court of Verona, then respondent, had violated Art. 68, second paragraph, of the Constitution. In that case, the judicial police, during the execution of a search decree of the seat of a political party (in itself not protected by parliamentary prerogative), found itself in front of a sign bearing the wording "Political Office-Office of the Honorable Maroni" affixed to the door of the premises to be searched. The Prosecutor’s Office, solicited by the operators to provide instructions, had confirmed the order to execute the search anyway, instead of – as would have been dutiful, according to this Court – arranging, where it had "nourished doubts on the reliability of the content of the signs," "the necessary verifications, to eventually proceed against those who had placed those signs."

15.1.– On the point, it is convenient first of all to reiterate that no doubt exists – as already supra, 13.1., observed – on the traceability of a political office to the notion of "domicile" for the purposes of the guarantee referred to in Art. 68, second paragraph, of the Constitution (so the same Judgment no. 58 of 2004, point 3 of the Considered in Law).

15.2.– One cannot, instead, agree with the petitioner's defense (nor with the defense of the Chamber of Deputies, intervened ad adiuvandum) on the qualification of the activities carried out by the respondent Prosecutor’s Office in the case under examination as a home search.

However one wishes to reconstruct the concept of "search" pursuant to Art. 68, second paragraph, of the Constitution, there is no doubt that the expression in question evokes, already under the etymological profile, not already any access in a given place not authorized by the eventual holder of the ius excludendi, but a "search" activity carried out in the same place; a search activity, more precisely, which cannot but have as its object persons or things in any case correlated to the commission of a crime.

If then a search pursuant to the constitutional norm under examination must necessarily be functional to the seizure of the same things or to the arrest of a person, or can also simply be aimed at the identification, during the operations of the judicial police, of traces of the crime or in any case evidence of its commission, of which a photographic or other nature documentation can be provided, it is a different question, to which it is not necessary to give an answer in this seat. In fact, in the case under examination it is peaceful that the entry of the judicial police into the property unit was aimed not already at identifying – during the access – persons, things or traces pertinent to the crime; but, exclusively, to place bugs in the room that would have been identified as in exclusive use by the suspect Hon. Sammartino. Thing that the operators punctually did, moreover placing other bugs in further two rooms, which had appeared likewise in use by the suspect alone.

15.3.– The access in question – which necessarily had to be realized without the knowledge of those who frequented the premises, so that every useful effect of the interception would not result frustrated – must rather qualify as prodromal activity strictly functional to the activation of a means of search for the evidence (interception between those present in a place indicated by Art. 614 of the Penal Code) provided in the abstract by the code of ritual (Arts. 266 and 267 of the Code of Criminal Procedure) and duly authorized by the GIP: which marks the essential difference between the case now under examination and that decided by this Court with Judgment no. 58 of 2004, in which the Veronese Prosecutor’s Office had ordered precisely to proceed to the search of the premises indicated as the political office of a parliamentarian.

With respect to the generality of co-associates, the legitimate character of such a prodromal activity – even in the silence, on the point, of the code of ritual – derives from its being an intermediate step necessary (and in any case not exceeding the purpose) with respect to the execution of the authorization measure of the interception between those present (thus Cass. no. 47331 of 2005; analogously also Court of Cassation, Fifth Criminal Section, Judgment November 5-December 9, 2003, no. 46963). So that the activity in question – once the qualification of "search" is excluded – can be considered legitimate, in so far as the interception of communications between those present can be considered legitimate, on the basis of the pertinent codicistic discipline as well as of Arts. 14 and 15 of the Constitution.

The same criterion cannot but hold true, in the opinion of this Court, also with regard to the special position of the parliamentarian: with respect to whom the legitimacy of the entry aimed at installing bugs must however be evaluated on the strength of the interpretation of the constitutional norm which operates as lex specialis for the parliamentarian's wiretaps, as well as of the ordinary law that specifies its discipline: and therefore of the third, rather than the second paragraph, of Art. 68 of the Constitution, in addition to the implementing provisions referred to in Art. 4 of Law no. 140 of 2003.

15.4.– With reference, therefore, to the places in which an interception between those present must be considered directly aimed at capturing the parliamentarian's conversations (supra, 13.4.), neither could the question be posed relative to the legitimacy of a clandestine entry aimed at the installation of bugs in those same places, where the ambient interception had not been previously authorized by the relevant Chamber.

Specularly, however, with respect to the places in which the interception must in principle be considered allowed – and segmentally in the rooms used in an exclusive way by people other than the parliamentarian, although the latter is formally the holder of a personal or real right of enjoyment over the entire property (supra, 13.5.) – it must necessarily be recognized also the legitimacy of the entry of the judicial police into the same rooms, for the sole purpose of installing the bugs in execution of a legitimate measure of the GIP, adopted in conformity with the current procedural norms applicable to any co-associate.

The same conclusion imposes itself also in the hypothesis in which, to reach such rooms, it is necessary to pass through rooms used also by the parliamentarian, such as the entrance or corridors (or, hypothetically, the hall and stairs of the building, of condominium property), and provided that the operators do not exceed with respect to such purpose. To reason differently, in fact, the execution of a measure legitimately adopted in the framework of a criminal investigation that involves, exclusively, one or more subjects not covered by the parliamentary prerogative would be in effect frustrated, as a result of a mere factual obstacle, without this being necessary to ensure effective protection to parliamentary functions, with this realizing an improper extension of the immunities provided by Art. 68 of the Constitution to subjects not invested with such functions.

15.5.– On the basis of such criteria, it must be excluded that, in the intervention executed in the night between July 25 and 26, 2019, the judicial police exceeded with respect to what was strictly necessary to execute the authorization measure of the GIP of April 12, 2019, and in any case with respect to what was allowed to the same GIP (and even before to the Prosecutor’s Office, in the seat of request of the authorization measure) on the basis of a correct interpretation of Art. 68 of the Constitution and of Art. 4 of Law no. 140 of 2003.

As results from the more than once cited service note attached to the report of July 27, 2019, the minimum of verifications on the places requested by the GIP – consisting in the identification of the room "in use by the suspect [Hon. Sammartino]," in which the bugs had to be installed – results in effect to have been fulfilled by the judicial police on the basis of a merely extrinsic reconnaissance of the objects present in the different rooms of the property unit. The verification in question allowed the attribution to the use of the only suspect Sammartino of three rooms instead of one, as had been hypothesized in the seat of request of the authorization measure. And such attribution was carried out for the exclusive purpose of installing further bugs, for the concrete activation of which – with respect to the two rooms further to that object of the first measure – the Prosecutor’s Office had to request and obtain a new authorization measure from the GIP, the following August 1.

With the same methods, as one understands from the even succinct indications contained in the aforementioned service note, the operators result to have identified "the office in confirmed use by Sen. Valeria Sudano," which consequently "was not affected by any type of operation."

15.6.– Also under the profile examined last, in conclusion, the non-fondatezza of the petition must be held.

for these reasons

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

Declares that it was the duty of the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Ordinary Court of Catania and the Judge for Preliminary Investigations of the same Court to request, arrange, and carry out the wiretaps authorized with the decrees issued on April 12, 2019, and August 1, 2019, within the framework of the criminal proceedings registered under no. 2280/2018 R.G.N.R.

Thus decided in Rome, at the seat of the Constitutional Court, Palazzo della Consulta, on February 24, 2026.

Signed:

Giovanni AMOROSO, President

Francesco VIGANÒ, Reporting Judge

Igor DI BERNARDINI, Chancellor

Filed in the Registry on April 3, 2026