JUDGMENT NO. 56

YEAR 2025

ITALIAN REPUBLIC

IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

composed of:

President: Giovanni AMOROSO;

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

has pronounced the following

JUDGMENT

in the proceedings regarding the constitutional legitimacy of Art. 26, paragraph 1, letter a), of Liguria Regional Law no. 20 of August 4, 2006 (New organization of the Regional Agency for the Protection of the Environment of Liguria and reorganization of activities and bodies for planning, programming, management, and control in the environmental field), initiated by the Court of Audit, Joint Jurisdictional Sections in special composition, in the proceedings between the Regional Prosecutor at the regional jurisdictional section of the Court of Audit for Liguria, the Prosecutor General of the Court of Audit, and the Liguria Region, pursuant to the order of July 1, 2025, registered under no. 169 of the 2025 register of orders and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic no. 38, first special series, of the year 2025.

Having examined the act of appearance of the Liguria Region, as well as the intervention brief of the Prosecutor General of the Court of Audit;

having heard in the public hearing of January 28, 2026, the Reporting Judge Marco D’Alberti;

having heard attorney Riccardo Maoli for the Liguria Region and the Deputy Prosecutor General of the Court of Audit, Andrea Lupi, for the Prosecutor General of the Court of Audit;

having deliberated in the chambers on January 28, 2026.

Legal Findings (Ritenuto in fatto)

1.– The Court of Audit, Joint Jurisdictional Sections in special composition, in the proceedings to challenge the decision confirming the final accounts of the Liguria Region for the 2023 financial year, by order of July 1, 2025, registered as no. 169 reg. ord. of 2025, has raised questions of constitutional legitimacy regarding Art. 26, paragraph 1, letter a), of Liguria Regional Law no. 20 of August 4, 2006 (New organization of the Regional Agency for the Protection of the Environment of Liguria and reorganization of activities and bodies for planning, programming, management, and control in the environmental field), with reference to Articles 3, second paragraph, 32, 81, 97, first paragraph, 117, paragraphs two, letters e) and m), and third, as well as Article 119, first paragraph, of the Constitution.

The contested provision governs the financing of the Regional Agency for the Protection of the Environment of Liguria (hereinafter: ARPAL) and stipulates that "[t]he financing of ARPAL’s activities under this law shall be provided by means of [...] ordinary annual financing charged to the resources of the current regional health fund.”

2.– The referring court states that it is seized of an appeal, filed by the Regional Prosecution Service of the Court of Audit at the regional jurisdictional section of Liguria, against the decision of July 18, 2024, no. 171, whereby the control section for the same Region confirmed the regional accounts for the 2023 financial year.

The referring Court further reports that it issued a non-definitive judgment on February 17, 2025, ruling on the preliminary exceptions raised by the Liguria Region, as well as on the declaration of withdrawal of the appeal formulated by the Prosecutor General. By a separate order, the referring court subsequently raised the current questions of constitutional legitimacy, relating to the ground of appeal in which the public prosecutor for financial matters contested the inclusion in the health perimeter of an expenditure deemed extraneous to it.

2.1.– As regards the relevance of the questions of constitutional legitimacy, the Court of Audit considers that the decision concerning the appeal proposed by the Regional Prosecution Service cannot disregard the application of the contested provision, which allowed the Liguria Region to utilize resources from the Regional Health Fund (FSR) for the financing of ARPAL's activities in the absence of a prior definition of the requirements related to "LEA [Essential Levels of Assistance] activities” and in the absence of analytical accounting recording mechanisms, aimed solely at identifying costs related to the protection of health stricto sensu.

Indeed, if the accounts were to be confirmed by applying the contested provision, the result would be to validate accounting outcomes deriving from the improper use of earmarked resources and the expansion of the expenditure capacity of the ordinary part of the budget, which would be "relieved” by the absence of charges relating to the financing of ARPAL.

Conversely, if the contested provision were removed from the legal order, the "illegitimacy of the expenditures concerning the financing of the Agency in the year 2023 (recorded under expenditure item 5296 of the regional budget, bearing the commitment and payment of the amount of 20,000,000.00)” would follow. Hence the relevance of the questions.

2.2.– The referring court proceeds to illustrate the relevant regulatory framework, recalling first of all the state provisions which, after the outcome of the abrogative referendum of April 18, 1993, reorganized the system of environmental controls. Reference is made, in particular, to Decree-Law no. 496 of December 4, 1993 (Urgent provisions on the reorganization of environmental controls and the establishment of the National Agency for the Protection of the Environment), converted, with amendments, into Law no. 61 of January 21, 1994, and Law no. 132 of June 28, 2016 (Establishment of the National Network System for Environmental Protection and regulation of the Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research).

From this regulatory framework, it emerges that the establishment of the regional agencies for environmental protection resulted, in accordance with the results of the referendum, in the transfer to them of only those competencies in environmental matters previously attributed to health authorities (former local health units), "but not the functions relating to collective prevention, falling within the essential levels of assistance (LEA), which remain in any case entrusted to the ASLs [Local Health Authorities], although they must be carried out in an integrated manner with the competent environmental agencies.”

2.3.– Liguria Regional Law no. 20 of 2006, in establishing ARPAL, would therefore have transferred to it the functions in environmental matters previously exercised by structures reporting to the former local health units. However, these functions would only be to a minimal extent attributable to health functions, so that their financing should remain distinct from that of entities in the health sector (reference is made to this Court's judgment no. 172 of 2018).

The referring court highlights that the contested provision has allowed the financing of ARPAL's operating expenses with resources from the regional health fund (FSR), thereby qualifying the expenditure for the financing of the Agency as "health” expenditure, included in the perimeter referred to in Art. 20 of Legislative Decree no. 118 of June 23, 2011 (Provisions on the harmonization of the accounting systems and budget schemes of the Regions, local authorities, and their bodies, in accordance with Articles 1 and 2 of Law no. 42 of May 5, 2009), but has not indicated the criteria for determining the services pertaining to the LEAs, with a distinction from other services falling within the Agency's duties, which are not fundable with resources destined for LEAs.

2.4.– The indifference of the contested regional norm "towards a mechanism of immediate and direct correlation between the quantum of the transfer and the requirements for the activities falling within the LEAs,” together with the lack of an analytical accounting recording system—for the purpose of identifying solely the costs associated with the processes relating to the protection of health stricto sensu—would entail the "risk of a promiscuous use of resources ontologically functional to essential assistance services, to finance also activities that do not fall within them.” This risk, according to the referring court, cannot be mitigated by the fact that, alongside the FSR resources, there are additional sources of financing, which would remain "in any case marginal in quantitative terms.”

In the system of financing ARPAL's activities, the centrality of ordinary annual financing charged to FSR resources was also reflected in the 2023 financial year. On the one hand, the regional budget indicates the share of FSR destined for transfers to local administration entities and reports the payment in favor of ARPAL of the amount of 20,000,000 euros. On the other hand, the budget of the Agency itself indicates the sum of 20,000,000 euros charged to the FSR, largely prevailing over the overall amount of 23,326,335 euros of institutional financing.

It would therefore be unreasonable for a preponderant part of ARPAL's overall financial requirements to be satisfied through the systematic use of earmarked resources derived from the FSR, in the absence of a prior and specific identification of the activities carried out by the Agency itself that are attributable to the LEAs.

Given the extremely varied nature of the functions attributed to ARPAL, only in a minimal part "attributable to health functions stricto sensu,” such a large financing of the Agency through resources reserved for LEAs would be unjustifiable. It would result in the alteration of the "structure of the perimeter of health expenditures referred to in Art. 20 of Legislative Decree no. 118/2011, thus evading the objectives of accounting harmonization regarding the rigid delimitation of health expenditure.”

In the opinion of the Joint Sections of the Court of Audit, it should be up to the Liguria Region to "demonstrate a precise correlation between health resources assigned to ARPAL and the LEAs, in order to justify their financing at the expense of the health perimeter. This correlation, however, is not provided for (and, therefore, is not imposed) by the regional norm on the sources of financing for ARPAL's activity, which allows for the indiscriminate financing of ARPAL's activities with health resources.”

According to the referring court, it would not be the integral or prevalent nature of the financing that would assume decisive importance for the purposes of the question of constitutional legitimacy. For the purposes of violating Art. 20 of Legislative Decree no. 118 of 2011, it would instead be relevant that the regional legislation does not impose a distinction between resources necessary to guarantee services pertaining to LEAs and other activities, numerous and heterogeneous, entrusted to the Agency, as such not fundable charged to the FSR.

2.5.– On the basis of these considerations, the Joint Sections of the Court of Audit believe that Article 117, second paragraph, letter e), of the Constitution is violated, first and foremost.

In this regard, reference is made to this Court’s judgment no. 1 of 2024, whereby the constitutional illegitimacy of a provision of a Sicilian Regional Law was declared, under which the expenses for ARPA’s operation could find coverage, indiscriminately, in the FSR. In fact, a violation of the State's exclusive legislative competence in the matter of harmonization of public budgets was found, pursuant to Art. 117, second paragraph, letter e), of the Constitution, in relation to the interposed norm represented by Art. 20 of Legislative Decree no. 118 of 2011, which requires regions to guarantee, within the scope of the budget, an exact delimitation of revenues and expenditures relating to the financing of their regional health service, thus establishing the essential conditions in the identification and allocation of resources inherent to the LEAs, in order to avoid accounting opacity and undue diversion of funds destined for the guarantee of health services.

According to the referring court, Art. 26, paragraph 1, letter a), of Liguria Regional Law no. 20 of 2006 would also violate Art. 117, second paragraph, letter e), of the Constitution, in relation to Art. 20 of Legislative Decree no. 118 of 2011. In fact, the contested provision would not introduce any correlation between the transfer to ARPAL of FSR resources and the provision of services pertaining to LEAs. Consequently, the structure of the health perimeter established by the aforementioned Art. 20 would be altered, and the objectives of accounting harmonization pursued by the state provision would be nullified.

The referring court considers the arguments of the regional defense unpersuasive, according to which the financing of ARPAL charged to the FSR would in practice always be aimed at requirements attributable to LEAs. In fact, the involvement of ARPAL in the functions of "Collective Prevention and Public Health,” referred to in Annex 1 to the Prime Ministerial Decree of January 12, 2017 (Definition and updating of the essential levels of assistance, referred to in Article 1, paragraph 7, of Legislative Decree no. 502 of December 30, 1992), would not include all the functions performed by the Agency and would not legitimize the overall financing of the same functions through resources earmarked for LEAs.

2.6.– The referring court also envisions the violation, in relation to the same interposed norm, of Art. 117, second paragraph, letter m), of the Constitution, which reserves to the State's exclusive legislative competence the determination of the essential levels of services concerning civil and social rights, "among which rights also falls [that] to health, protected by Art. 32 of the Constitution [...] to be ensured throughout the national territory as a guarantee of the substantive equality of citizens (Art. 3 of the Constitution).”

The allocation for the generic benefit of ARPAL's operation of earmarked resources of the health perimeter could, in fact, jeopardize the effective provision of LEAs, undermining the protection of the right to health and diverting resources destined for its guarantee, with consequent injury also to Art. 3, second paragraph, and Art. 32 of the Constitution.

2.7.– Furthermore, Articles 81, 97, first paragraph, and 119, first paragraph, of the Constitution would be violated, established as a guarantee of budget balance and sustainability of expenditure, due to the expansion of the ordinary expenditure capacity, which would derive from having allocated resources reserved for LEAs to purposes extraneous to the health perimeter, which the Region should have pursued through ordinary budget resources.

2.8.– Finally, it would not be possible to provide a constitutionally oriented interpretation of the contested provision, given its clear literal tenor.

It lacks any provision that allows correlating the measure of the transfer of resources destined ex lege for LEA services to the actual performance of such services, including through an accounting of the expenses aimed at the provision of health services, based on criteria of analytical identification of management facts.

3.– With an act filed on October 2, 2025, the Liguria Region entered an appearance in the proceedings, asking that the questions be declared inadmissible or unfounded.

3.1.– After illustrating the relevant regulatory framework, the regional defense argues the inadmissibility of the questions due to the lack of the requirement of relevance, as there would be a lack of a precise and detailed demonstration of the resources effectively diverted from the health perimeter and from the implementation of the LEAs.

The referring court would have limited itself to envisioning a generic risk of a promiscuous use of resources destined for LEAs to finance also activities that do not fall within them. However, in the opinion of the Liguria Region, the existence of a concrete and effective vulnus deriving from the transfer to ARPAL of resources for the performance of activities not inherent to LEAs would remain unproven (reference is made to this Court's judgment no. 246 of 2012, as well as Court of Audit, Joint Jurisdictional Sections, judgment no. 12 of August 1, 2025).

3.2.– As regards the merits, the Liguria Region argues that the question of constitutional legitimacy raised in reference to Art. 117, second paragraph, letter e), of the Constitution, regarding the harmonization of public budgets, is unfounded.

First, the regional defense considers the reference to the aforementioned judgment no. 1 of 2024 irrelevant, as demonstrated by this Court’s failure to exercise the power, provided for by Art. 27 of Law no. 87 of March 11, 1953 (Norms on the constitution and functioning of the Constitutional Court), to declare consequential constitutional illegitimacy of the provisions of the Ligurian regional law that form the subject of the questions raised in the proceedings under examination.

Furthermore, the situation of ARPAL would be different from that evaluated in judgment no. 1 of 2024: in fact, the Ligurian legislation—unlike the Sicilian one examined in the aforementioned judgment—provides for ARPAL's activity a diversified financing system—consistent with the discipline laid down by D.L. no. 496 of 1993 and Law no. 132 of 2016—as well as prior programming activity regarding the services to be provided.

3.3.– In the opinion of the regional defense, the manifest groundlessness of the questions of constitutional legitimacy would also derive from the incorrect interpretation of the discipline. In particular, the referring court would not take into account the principle, affirmed by Law no. 132 of 2016, of the invariance of expenditure for the functions entrusted to ARPA, through the attribution to the agencies of the functions, personnel, movable and immovable property, equipment, and financial endowment inherent to the competencies in environmental matters previously carried out by the Regional Health Service.

From this principle, the necessity would derive that these functions be financed with part of the funds previously destined for the SSR [Regional Health Service] for the exercise of the same functions. Otherwise, one would arrive at the paradoxical consequence of believing that the State had not provided financial coverage for the essential levels of environmental technical services (hereinafter: LEPTA).

The regional defense emphasizes that regional agencies are called upon to carry out, on the basis of minimum standards established at the state level (indicated by the LEPTA), the health functions most closely related to environmental protection, indispensable to guarantee the essential levels of health services. Therefore, the functions attributed to the same agencies constitute activities necessary to guarantee the provision of LEAs. The regional resources destined for ARPA would therefore be used for purposes already identified by the state legislator, namely for the protection of health.

From the necessary integration between the services rendered by the environmental protection system (defined by the LEPTA) and the collective prevention objectives provided for by the LEAs, it follows that ARPAL's activities, despite being characterized by an environmental specialization, have a strict and direct correlation with health prevention and an impact on the quality of health. This would justify the assignment to ARPAL of the financial resources in question. In this regard, reference is made to the judgment of the Court of Audit, Joint Jurisdictional Sections, August 1, 2025, no. 12, and the order of the Court of Cassation, fifth civil section, April 30, 2019, no. 11409.

3.4.– On the other hand, the referring court's presentation would not take into consideration the provisions of the same Liguria Regional Law no. 20 of 2006 which provide for controls regarding the use of resources destined to finance ARPAL’s activities (Articles 14, 23-ter and 27). From these provisions, it would derive that the regional discipline—despite being prior to Art. 20 of Legislative Decree no. 118 of 2011 and thus unable to carry an appropriate and express provision regarding the distinction between resources pertaining to LEAs and those relating to other activities entrusted to ARPAL—would in any case be suitable for ensuring the correct allocation of sums destined for the health perimeter.

3.5.– The regional defense also argues that the further censures formulated by the referring court, in reference to Art. 117, second paragraph, letter m), of the Constitution, for violation of the State's exclusive competence in the determination of the essential levels of services concerning civil and social rights that must be guaranteed throughout the national territory, are unfounded.

In the opinion of the Liguria Region, this presentation would be based on the erroneous premise that the contested provision had given rise to a surreptitious subtraction of resources from the health perimeter and had affected the methods and extent of LEA financing.

3.6.– On the other hand, there would not even be a violation of Articles 32 and 3, second paragraph, of the Constitution.

In fact, even the deduced prejudice to the effective provision of LEAs—and, therefore, to the protection of the fundamental right to health—would be based on the erroneous premise of the extraneousness of the functions performed by ARPAL with respect to the health sector. On the contrary, the regional defense reiterates that the activities entrusted to the Agency, despite being characterized by a specialization in the environmental field, have a direct correlation with the health sector and an impact on the quality of health, within which not only diagnostic and therapeutic activities fall, but also those inherent to the prevention of pathologies.

3.7.– Finally, the regional defense considers the denounced violation of Articles 81, 97, first paragraph, and 119, first paragraph, of the Constitution to be non-existent.

Liguria Regional Law no. 20 of 2006 would not entail a decrease in the resources destined for LEAs. In this regard, reference is made to the invariance of the expenditure relating to the functions entrusted to ARPAL, to which are attributed the same competencies and resources previously attributed to the local health units for the performance of the same activities, as well as the close connection between LEA and LEPTA.

4.– With an act filed on October 6, 2025, the Prosecutor General of the Court of Audit asked to intervene in the proceedings, as a necessary party to the proceedings a quo, arguing the groundlessness of the questions of constitutional legitimacy raised by the referring court.

4.1.– In support of the admissibility of its participation in the proceedings, the right of State organs and regions to intervene in proceedings before this Court is invoked (Art. 20, second paragraph, of Law no. 87 of 1953, bearing "Norms on the constitution and functioning of the Constitutional Court”), according to the discipline contained in Art. 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Norms for proceedings before the Constitutional Court. It could not be doubted "that, even if the subject of distinct mention, the public prosecutor, a party to the proceedings a quo, constitutes, for all intents and purposes, ‘one of the parties’.”

Such an interpretation would also be consistent with the general principles of the legal system and, in particular, with the principle of equality of arms, enshrined in Art. 111, second paragraph, of the Constitution. The Prosecutor General believes, in fact, that—in the absence of an express exclusion of the public prosecutor—every reference to the "parties,” in the norms governing the judgment of constitutional legitimacy, must be understood as including the prosecuting organ that is a party to the proceedings a quo (reference is made to judgments no. 184 and no. 90 of 2022 of this Court).

The protection of the integrity of the adversarial proceedings would be recognized, in particular, in single-instance proceedings before the Joint Sections in jurisdictional capacity in special composition of the Court of Audit. In such proceedings, pursuant to Art. 127, paragraph 2, of Legislative Decree no. 174 of August 26, 2016 (Code of accounting justice, adopted in accordance with Article 20 of Law no. 124 of August 7, 2015), the Prosecutor General is a necessary intervening party and, therefore, is the holder of a qualified interest, inherent in a direct and immediate way to the relationship deduced in the proceedings.

On the other hand, the exclusion of the prosecuting organ would be devoid of justification also in light of the introduction of Art. 6 of the Supplementary Norms, which allows non-profit social formations and institutional subjects, bearers of collective or diffuse interests pertaining to the question of constitutional legitimacy, to present their relative opinions. In fact, if the intervention of the Prosecutor General were considered inadmissible, a treatment even worse than that recognized to amici curiae would be reserved for it, being precluded the possibility of representing its own opinion in the incidental judgment of constitutional legitimacy.

4.2.– As regards the merits, the Prosecutor General believes that the questions of constitutional legitimacy raised by the Court of Audit are manifestly unfounded.

In the first place, the Prosecutor General emphasizes that where, as in the case under examination, the financing of the Agency charged to the FSR is not integral, but only partial, the proof of the exceeding of the health perimeter would in practice be lacking.

It is pointed out that in the case of the Liguria Region, unlike that of the Sicilian ARPA evaluated in the aforementioned judgment no. 1 of 2024, the functions of ARPAL are not financed exclusively by the FSR, but also by additional sources, expressly indicated by the recalled Art. 26 of Liguria Regional Law no. 20 of 2006: transfers from the regional budget for the realization of regional programs in environmental matters (letter b); financing from provinces and municipalities for further activities not included in regional programs (letter c); proceeds from private parties in return for ARPAL’s services (letter d); revenues placed at the charge of owners of plants or activities subject to authorizations and procedures for remediation or environmental impact assessment (EIA) (letter e).

The referring court would not have considered that—even after the introduction of the LEPTA—the main source of financing for the ARPA would have remained anchored to the resources of the National Health Service. On the other hand, LEAs and LEPTA would not concern completely distinct areas, but would present ample interferences, taking into account the effects of the activities under ARPA’s competence on the health of citizens.

This would also be demonstrated by the fact that—following this Court’s judgment no. 1 of 2024—Art. 90, paragraph 10, of the Sicilian Regional Law no. 6 of May 3, 2001 (Programmatic and financial provisions for the year 2001), would limit itself to providing that a part of the resources necessary for the financing of the Agency be found outside the health perimeter (as established by the provision of the Liguria Region subject to censure) and, for the part of the LEPTA coinciding with the LEAs, to highlight the physiological connection between protection of health and protection of the environment.

The Prosecutor General observes that, although in the contested provision the mechanism of correlation between the financing charged to the FSR and the requirements for the activities falling within the LEAs is not specified, this would in any case be derivable from the further provisions of the same Liguria Regional Law no. 20 of 2006, in which are indicated the controls in the environmental field carried out by ARPAL (Art. 26-bis), the regional and provincial programs of environmental controls and monitoring (Articles 27 and 28), as well as the establishment of a regional environmental information system (Articles 29 and 30). From these provisions, it would result that the majority of ARPAL’s controls are aimed at the protection of the health of citizens.

Reference is also made to the judgment of the Court of Audit, Joint Jurisdictional Sections, August 1, 2025, no. 12, with which—relatively to an analogous case (the challenge of the accounts of the Molise Region for the 2022 financial year)—the Region’s appeal was upheld, in part, in the absence of proof of the violation of the health perimeter.

Finally, the Prosecutor General believes that the case examined by this Court’s judgment no. 172 of 2018, recalled by the referring court, would be completely different from the one under examination. With said pronouncement, in fact, a Sicilian regional provision was declared constitutionally illegitimate which—by qualifying the ARPA as an entity in the health sector—was "susceptible of generating charges at the expense of the National Health Service that were not quantified and not covered.”

Legal Reasoning (Considerato in diritto)

5.– The Court of Audit, Joint Jurisdictional Sections in special composition, in the proceedings to challenge the decision confirming the final accounts of the Liguria Region for the 2023 financial year, adopted by the control section for the same Region, with the order indicated in the epigraph (reg. ord. no. 169 of 2025), has raised questions of constitutional legitimacy regarding Art. 26, paragraph 1, letter a), of Liguria Regional Law no. 20 of 2006, with reference to Articles 3, second paragraph, 32, 81, 97, first paragraph, 117, paragraphs two, letters e) and m), and third, as well as Article 119, first paragraph, of the Constitution.

The contested provision stipulates that "[t]he financing of ARPAL’s activities under this law shall be provided by means of [...] ordinary annual financing charged to the resources of the current regional health fund.”

6.– In the first place, the referring court denounces the violation of Art. 117, second paragraph, letter e), of the Constitution, which provides for the State's exclusive competence in the matter of "harmonization of public budgets,” due to the contrast with the interposed norm referred to in Art. 20 of Legislative Decree no. 118 of 2011, since the absence of an immediate and direct correlation between the transfer to ARPAL of FSR resources and the provision of services pertaining to LEAs would entail the alteration of the structure of the health perimeter prescribed by the recalled Art. 20 and would nullify the objectives of accounting harmonization that this state provision pursues.

Furthermore, Articles 3, second paragraph, 32 and 117, second paragraph, letter m), of the Constitution would be violated, the latter still in relation to Art. 20 of Legislative Decree no. 118 of 2011, since the allocation of resources of the health perimeter for the generic benefit of ARPAL’s operation would be susceptible to jeopardizing the effective provision of LEAs, undermining the protection of the right to health.

The contested provision would also violate Articles 81, 97, first paragraph, and 119, first paragraph, of the Constitution, for contrast with the principle of budget balance and sustainability of expenditure, by reason of the expansion of the ordinary expenditure capacity deriving from the allocation of resources reserved for LEAs to purposes extraneous to the health perimeter, which the Liguria Region should have satisfied through ordinary budget resources.

7.– Preliminarily, the admissibility of the intervention in these proceedings of the Prosecutor General of the Court of Audit in his capacity as a necessary party to the proceedings a quo must be noted.

This Court, recognizing the peculiarity of the position of the accounting public prosecutor in single-instance proceedings before the Joint Sections in jurisdictional capacity, in special composition, has recently held that he is permitted to participate in the related incidental proceedings (judgment no. 39 of 2026).

Indeed, constitutional jurisprudence had already highlighted the specificity of the position of the accounting public prosecutor, "especially when he is the holder of the power of impulse of the process” (judgments no. 375 and no. 1 of 1996, recalled by judgment no. 39 of 2026), excluding, however, precisely "[b]y reason of such specificity, [...] that the appearance, in incidental proceedings of constitutional legitimacy, of the public prosecutor of the proceedings a quibus can be deemed provided for or disciplined by the general norms and by the supplementary procedural norms before the Constitutional Court and, at the same time, of being able to resort to the application, by analogy, of the discipline dictated for the parties” (judgment no. 375 of 1996). It must, however, be noted that the principal proceedings in relation to which this orientation was expressed originated from administrative liability actions exercised by the accounting public prosecutor.

For single-instance proceedings before the Joint Sections in jurisdictional capacity, in special composition, however, the code of accounting justice dedicates "a peculiar discipline [...], distinct from that dictated for liability proceedings” (judgment no. 39 of 2026). In particular, Art. 127, paragraph 2, of the Code of accounting justice mentions the Prosecutor General "as a necessary intervening party in the proceedings,” in which he, as recognized by this Court, is "holder of the public interest in the correct management of accounts” (again judgment no. 39 of 2026). This justifies his participation in the incidental judgment of constitutional legitimacy.

8.– Still preliminarily, the exception, raised by the regional defense, of inadmissibility of the questions due to lack of relevance, correlated to the lack of demonstration of the effective diversion of resources from the health perimeter and from the implementation of the LEAs, must be rejected.

The regional defense emphasizes that the referring court itself did not deny that ARPAL could also perform activities pertaining to LEAs, but centered all the censures on the mere "risk of a promiscuous use of resources ontologically functional to essential assistance services, to finance also activities that do not fall within them.”

The exception is not well-founded.

Constitutional jurisprudence is now constant in holding that the judgment regarding the relevance of questions of constitutional legitimacy "is reserved to the referring court and, with respect to it, this Court performs a merely external control, limited to ascertaining that the motivation is not implausible, is not manifestly erroneous and is not contradictory (judgments no. 160 and no. 139 of 2023, no. 199 and no. 192 of 2022 and no. 32 of 2021), without going so far as an autonomous examination of the elements that led the referring court to certain conclusions, being able to review this evaluation only if it, at first sight, appears absolutely devoid of foundation” (thus, among many, judgment no. 213 of 2025 point 2 of the Legal Reasoning).

Also in the case under examination, as in that subject to judgment no. 174 of 2025, "the reference to the ‘risk of a promiscuous use of resources ontologically functional to essential assistance services’ does not reveal a defect of motivation on the relevance, as excepted by the Region, but highlights the ‘pathological’ effects allowed by the contested provision.”

9.– On the merits, the question raised in reference to the State's exclusive legislative competence referred to in Art. 117, second paragraph, letter e), of the Constitution, in the matter of harmonization of public budgets, in relation to the interposed norm on the health perimeter referred to in Art. 20 of Legislative Decree no. 118 of 2011, is well-founded.

9.1.– Precisely with reference to the financing mechanism of regional environmental agencies, this Court has noted that the interposed norm referred to in Art. 20, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree no. 118 of 2011 requires regions to guarantee, within the scope of the budget, "an exact delimitation of revenues and expenditures relating to the financing of their regional health service,” in order to allow for immediate comparability between health revenues and expenditures entered in the regional budget and the resources indicated in health financial programming acts. It has in fact been recognized that this "interposed norm is specifically functional, consistently with its heading (Transparency of health accounts and finalization of resources for the financing of individual regional health services), to avoid accounting opacity and undue diversion of funds destined for the guarantee of LEAs” (judgment no. 1 of 2024, point 4.2. of the Legal Reasoning; analogously, judgments no. 169, no. 68 of 2024 and no. 132 of 2021).

In short, the recalled Art. 20 not only establishes rules aimed at ensuring the delimitation of revenues and expenditures relating to the financing of the Regional Health Service, also from the perspective of coordinating public finance objectives, but also fixes "essential conditions in the identification and allocation of resources inherent to the essential levels of services (judgment no. 197 of 2019)” (judgment no. 4 of 2026).

9.2.– In the same Art. 20, paragraph 1, in fact, the adoption of an articulation of budget items is provided for, which allows for guaranteeing "separate evidence” of the quantities typified therein, the first of which, in section A) "[r]evenues” (letter a), indicates the "ordinary current health financing as deriving” from the recalled programming sources, to which corresponds, in letter a) of section B) "[e]xpenditure,” the "current health expenditure for the financing of LEAs [...]”

For the health perimeter thus brought to evidence, specific accounting rules are then fixed which, as the subsequent paragraph 2 specifies, are aimed at "guaranteeing effectiveness to the financing of the levels of health assistance” (judgments no. 174, no. 150 of 2025 and no. 1 of 2024).

9.3.– In the case under examination, the contested provisions provide for an indiscriminate assignment of resources to ARPAL, without distinguishing between health resources—and, within them, those necessary to guarantee services pertaining to LEAs—and those destined for services of the Agency of a non-health nature, as such not fundable through the FSR.

In this regard, what has already been affirmed by this Court in judgment no. 1 of 2024 must be reiterated. On that occasion, it was held that the contested regional provision, concerning the functioning mechanism of the local environmental protection agency, "in providing that all expenses for the Agency's operation could find coverage, indiscriminately, in the Regional Health Fund, is in contrast with the interposed norm referred to in the mentioned Art. 20, since, in the text in force ratione temporis, it assigned resources to ARPA indiscriminately, without distinguishing between those necessary to guarantee services pertaining to LEAs and those destined for services of the Agency of a non-health nature, as such not fundable through the Regional Health Fund” (thus judgment no. 1 of 2024, recalled by subsequent judgments no. 174 and no. 150 of 2025).

9.4.– In this regard, the circumstance, highlighted by the regional defense, that the contested Art. 26 of Liguria Regional Law no. 20 of 2006—unlike the provision of the Sicilian Region examined in the recalled judgment—provides for ARPAL’s activity a diversified financing system, which also includes further sources, expressly indicated in letters b) to d) of Art. 26 of Liguria Regional Law no. 20 of 2006, is irrelevant.

In fact, even disregarding the marginal nature of the further financing sources provided for by the contested provision, the contrast with the discipline laid down by Art. 20 of Legislative Decree no. 118 of 2011 derives from the "indiscriminate” assignment of FSR resources to ARPAL, which does not allow for distinguishing, with "separate evidence,” between those necessary to guarantee services pertaining to LEAs and those destined for activities of the Agency of a non-health nature.

It must also be emphasized that, compared to the regional provision examined in judgment no. 1 of 2024, in the case under examination the contrast with Art. 20 of Legislative Decree no. 118 of 2011 is accentuated by the failure to predetermine the share of annual financing of FSR resources transferable to ARPAL.

9.5.– This Court has also specified that "the assignment to ARPA of functions not referable exclusively to the protection of the environment and also concerning the health sector cannot justify the failure to comply with the recalled state discipline on the ‘health perimeter,’ which imposes the precise identification of resources destined to guarantee LEAs, on pain of violation of Art. 117, second paragraph, letter e), of the Constitution, in the matter of harmonization of public budgets” (judgments no. 174 of 2025 and no. 1 of 2024).

In short, the recalled Art. 20 not only establishes rules aimed at ensuring the delimitation of revenues and expenditures relating to the financing of the Regional Health Service, also from the perspective of coordinating public finance objectives, but also poses "essential conditions in the identification and allocation of resources inherent to the essential levels of services (judgment no. 197 of 2019)” (judgment no. 4 of 2026).

The violation of the State's exclusive competence in the matter of harmonization of public budgets, referred to in Art. 117, second paragraph, letter e), of the Constitution, exists, having regard to Art. 20 of Legislative Decree no. 38 of 2011.

10.– The further questions are absorbed.

FOR THESE REASONS

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

declares the constitutional illegitimacy of Art. 26, paragraph 1, letter a), of Liguria Regional Law no. 20 of August 4, 2006 (New organization of the Regional Agency for the Protection of the Environment of Liguria and reorganization of activities and bodies for planning, programming, management, and control in the environmental field).

So decided in Rome, at the seat of the Constitutional Court, Palazzo della Consulta, on January 28, 2026.

Signed:

Giovanni AMOROSO, President

Marco D’ALBERTI, Drafting Judge

Roberto MILANA, Director of the Chancellery

Filed in the Chancellery on April 27, 2026