JUDGMENT NO. 77
YEAR 2026
ITALIAN REPUBLIC
IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
composed of:
President: Giovanni AMOROSO;
Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Massimo LUCIANI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
has pronounced the following
JUDGMENT
in the proceedings regarding the constitutional legitimacy of Article 87-bis, paragraphs 7, letter c), and 8, of Legislative Decree no. 150 of October 10, 2022 (Implementation of Law no. 134 of September 27, 2021, delegating the Government to ensure the efficiency of the criminal process, as well as on matters of restorative justice and provisions for the swift resolution of judicial proceedings), brought by the Court of Cassation, First Criminal Section, through two referral orders dated September 1, 2025, registered under numbers 200 and 201 of the 2025 register of orders, and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic no. 43, first special series, of the year 2025.
Having viewed the briefs filed by the President of the Council of Ministers;
having heard in the chambers on March 23, 2026, the Reporting Judge Francesco Viganò;
deliberated in the chambers on March 23, 2026.
Legal Findings (Facts of the Case)
1.– By means of two identically worded referral orders, filed on September 1, 2025, and registered under numbers 200 and 201 of the 2025 register of orders, the Court of Cassation, First Criminal Section, has raised, ex officio, with reference to Articles 3 and 24 of the Constitution, as well as in relation to Article 6, paragraph 1, of the European Convention on Human Rights, questions concerning the constitutional legitimacy of Article 87-bis, paragraphs 7, letter c), and 8, of Legislative Decree no. 150 of October 10, 2022 (Implementation of Law no. 134 of September 27, 2021, delegating the Government to ensure the efficiency of the criminal process, as well as on matters of restorative justice and provisions for the swift resolution of judicial proceedings), "in the part in which it mandates the inadmissibility of an appeal transmitted to a certified electronic mail (PEC) address other than the prescribed one (consisting of the address assigned to the office that issued the challenged measure), even when such appeal reaches the judge a quo within the peremptory deadline for filing."
1.1.– In both cases subject to the main proceedings, the referring Section is called upon to decide on the petition for cassation filed by a detainee against a decision of the Surveillance Magistrate of Bologna, which declared inadmissible the complaint presented by the interested party regarding an ordinance issued by the same Magistrate (concerning, in the first case, compensatory remedies under Article 35-ter of Law no. 354 of July 26, 1975, containing "Rules on the penitentiary system and the execution of measures restricting or limiting liberty," and, in the second, early release), on the grounds that the complaint was sent to the certified electronic mail (PEC) address attributable to the Surveillance Tribunal of Bologna, the judge ad quem, rather than to the Surveillance Office that issued the challenged measure.
1.2.– In both instances, the appellants complain against the declaration of inadmissibility of their respective claims, arguing that such procedural sanction should only be applicable in cases where the appeal is sent to an address not included in the list provided by the Director General for Automated Information Systems (DGSIA). In the present cases, however, the address used was included in that list and was attributable to the Surveillance Tribunal, whose seat is the same as that of the Surveillance Office that issued the challenged decisions. The appellants also allege a violation of Articles 178, 179, 591, and 568, paragraph 5, of the Code of Criminal Procedure, as the declaration of inadmissibility was pronounced by the same magistrate who issued the challenged measure, and not by the Surveillance Tribunal.
1.3.– Having premised this, the Court of Cassation observes that Article 87-bis of Legislative Decree no. 150 of 2022, introduced by Article 5-quinquies of Decree-Law no. 162 of October 31, 2022 (Urgent measures regarding the prohibition of granting penitentiary benefits to detainees or internees who do not cooperate with justice, as well as regarding the deadlines for the application of the provisions of Legislative Decree no. 150 of October 10, 2022, and provisions relating to sports justice disputes, as well as anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccination obligations, implementation of the National Pandemic Influenza Plan, and prevention and counteraction of illegal gatherings), converted, with amendments, into Law no. 199 of December 30, 2022, while allowing the transmission of appeal documents via PEC, prescribes that the appeal is inadmissible when "it is transmitted to a certified electronic mail address not attributable, according to what is indicated by the decree of the Director General for Automated Information Systems referred to in paragraph 1, to the office that issued the challenged measure" (paragraph 7, letter c), further providing that, in such a case, "the judge who issued the challenged measure declares, even ex officio, by ordinance, the inadmissibility of the appeal and orders the execution of the challenged measure" (paragraph 8).
The cause of inadmissibility provided for by Article 87-bis, paragraph 7, letter c), relates, more specifically, to the submission of the appeal to a PEC address not corresponding to the office that issued the challenged measure and which would be competent to receive it pursuant to paragraph 4. It is thus distinguished from the different hypothesis of inadmissibility consisting of sending the document to a PEC address not included in the list compiled by the DGSIA (a hypothesis, the latter, examined by the Court of Cassation, Second Criminal Section, judgment no. 11795 of February 21-March 20, 2024; Fourth Criminal Section, judgment no. 48804 of November 14-December 7, 2023; First Criminal Section, judgment no. 47557 of November 29-December 30, 2024).
In the present cases, the complaints against the decisions of the Surveillance Magistrate of Bologna should have been sent to the PEC address of the relevant office, as the latter is "a body entirely different from the surveillance tribunal, and autonomous with respect to it." Correctly, therefore, based on the challenged provisions, the Surveillance Magistrate declared the complaints inadmissible, even though they had in fact reached his office within the deadline for filing an appeal, having been transmitted to him, within said deadline, by the Surveillance Tribunal to which they had been erroneously sent.
Nor could "a different solution be reached" based on Article 69-bis of the Penitentiary System, which establishes the jurisdiction of the surveillance tribunal to decide every issue regarding complaints filed against the ordinances of the surveillance magistrate, because that provision should be considered superseded by the "subsequent and special" provision of Article 87-bis, paragraph 8, of Legislative Decree no. 150 of 2022, which provides for the jurisdiction of the judge who issued the challenged measure to declare its inadmissibility in the cases referred to in paragraph 7, and therefore also in that referred to in letter c).
Neither could the provision of Article 568, paragraph 5, of the Code of Criminal Procedure be applied, according to which "[t]he appeal is admissible independently of the classification given to it by the party that proposed it" and, if proposed to an incompetent judge, must be transmitted by them to the competent judge. According to the jurisprudence of legitimacy (citing Court of Cassation, Fifth Criminal Section, judgment no. 42578 of September 27-November 20, 2024; First Criminal Section, order no. 3063 of September 15, 2023-January 24, 2024; United Criminal Sections, judgment no. 1626 of September 24, 2020-January 14, 2021), Article 568, paragraph 5, of the Code of Criminal Procedure is in fact applicable only in cases of "substantial" irregularity of the appeal (consisting of the proposal before an incompetent judge or the use of a means of appeal different from that provided by the procedural code), and not in the presence of "a purely formal defect, which does not concern the substance of the document but only its transmission."
For its part, Article 87-bis, paragraph 7, letter c), of Legislative Decree no. 150 of 2022 does not provide for any obligation of transmission of the appeal document by the judge who must decide on the merits (to whom it was erroneously sent), to the judge who issued the challenged measure and who should have received it pursuant to Article 87-bis, paragraph 4, limiting itself to sanctioning with inadmissibility "the error in indicating the electronic address." Conversely, paragraph 8 of the provision would oblige the judge who was to receive the appeal document to declare it, in this hypothesis, inadmissible, without regard for the fact that they had in fact received it within the deadline to appeal.
The referring Section acknowledges that some judgments of legitimacy (citing Fifth Criminal Section, judgment no. 23192 of April 29-June 20, 2025; Sixth Criminal Section, judgment no. 19415 of April 17-May 23, 2025), ruling on the analogous "rigid formalism" introduced by Article 24, paragraph 6-sexies, of Decree-Law no. 137 of October 28, 2020 (Further urgent measures regarding the protection of health, support for workers and businesses, justice and security, related to the epidemiological emergency from COVID-19), converted, with amendments, into Law no. 176 of December 18, 2020, and then reproduced by the challenged provisions, have deemed it surmountable, by virtue of the principles of favor impugnationis and the achievement of the document's purpose affirmed by the judgment of the United Sections no. 1626 of 2021, thus concluding for the admissibility of an appeal which, although sent to the judge incompetent to receive it, was transmitted by them to the judge competent for receipt, who had received it in a timely manner.
According to the judge a quo, however, the principles affirmed by the cited judgment no. 1626 of 2021, dictated with reference to the filing of the appeal in paper form, would not be extensible to the transmission of the appeal via PEC, as they were expressed "in a context of rules not marked, as the current one instead is, by the provision of a specific cause of inadmissibility for sending the document to an electronic address not corresponding to the office of the judge who issued the challenged measure." There would thus be no room to "attempt, by way of interpretation, a correction of the excesses of regulatory formalism of the provisions in question," in light of the literal text of Article 87-bis, paragraphs 7, letter c), and 8, of Legislative Decree no. 150 of 2022.
The challenged combined provisions would, however, be of doubtful compatibility with Articles 3 and 24 of the Constitution, "by reason of the submission to inadmissibility of the appeal document even when, despite the party's error in transmission via electronic means, it reached the judge a quo, and therefore the body identified by the law, well before the expiration of the deadlines for its presentation."
1.4.– The issues would be relevant.
In both cases subject to the judicia a quibus, the complaints erroneously sent to the PEC address of the Surveillance Tribunal of Bologna were printed in paper form and delivered to the registry of the Surveillance Magistrate of Bologna "by hand delivery, as that office has the same seat as the registry of the Surveillance Tribunal, and the personnel assigned to the two offices is the same." The appeals were timely received by the Surveillance Magistrate, within the ten-day period from the last notification of the challenged decisions; nor do there exist other causes of inadmissibility of the appeals. The declaration of constitutional illegitimacy of the challenged rule, "in the part in which it establishes the inadmissibility of the appeal for the formal defect that occurred, or in the sole part in which it does not exclude such sanction in the case where the document, although flawed, reaches the office of the judge a quo in a timely manner," would therefore allow "the transmission of the complaint to the judge ad quem and its examination on the merits."
1.5.– As to the non-manifest groundlessness of the questions, the referring Section assumes that Article 87-bis, paragraphs 7, letter c), and 8, of Legislative Decree no. 150 of 2022, inspired by "a rigid formalism," would stand in contrast with the principle of favor impugnationis, a "declination of the right of defense," as well as with the canon of reasonableness, of which the criterion of achieving the document's purpose would be an expression, to which the discipline of the procedural code regarding appeals is inspired (Article 568, paragraph 5, and Article 582, paragraph 2, as interpreted by the judgment of the United Sections no. 1626 of 2021 and now transposed into Article 111-bis, inserted by Article 6, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree no. 150 of 2022) and of the healing of nullities of citations and notices (Article 184, paragraph 1).
The challenged discipline would instead attribute "an unjustified prevalence to the formal correctness of the document, or rather to its methods of transmission, over its substantive correctness, in a matter pertaining to the exercise of defensive rights, making the loss of the right to obtain a pronouncement on the merits from the appellate judge depend on a mere error, even if factually remedied and therefore devoid of effective consequences."
1.5.1.– There would result, first of all, a lesion to the right of defense referred to in Article 24 of the Constitution.
Unlike Article 568, paragraph 5, of the Code of Criminal Procedure – which allows a judge incompetent to hear an appeal to transmit it, following any possible reclassification, to the judge competent for examination on the merits – Article 87-bis, paragraphs 7, letter c), and 8, of Legislative Decree no. 150 of 2022, in the face of a mere transmission to an incorrect electronic address, would impose the declaration of inadmissibility of the appeal, without allowing the application of the principle of preservation of documents, not even where it has reached the judge competent to receive it in a timely manner. This would result in "a serious vulnus for the appellant, not justified by the difference in the errors committed by them, as a formal defect cannot be considered more serious than a substantive defect, to the point of being in any case not curable."
1.5.2.– The challenged discipline would also violate Article 3 of the Constitution, since, unreasonably, it would sanction with inadmissibility an appeal document affected by a merely formal defect such as sending it to a PEC address indicated by the DGSIA but not attributable to the office that issued the decision (a transmission that could depend on "an error in identifying the judge competent to receive the document or their electronic address, or even just an oversight in reading or transcribing the address itself," but which would not raise "doubts regarding the subject's will to propose an appeal to the competent judge"), whereas Article 568, paragraph 5, of the Code of Criminal Procedure, in compliance with the principle of favor impugnationis, would not provide for the inadmissibility of an appeal affected by substantive defects (because proposed to an incompetent judge or with a means other than that provided by law) and would indeed oblige the judge who received the document to transmit it, following any possible reclassification, to the competent judge, who "will be able to evaluate the existence only of the causes of inadmissibility provided for by Article 591 of the Code of Criminal Procedure."
The unreasonableness of such a diversity of discipline would be manifest in the present cases, in which the appeals should be declared inadmissible, despite having timely reached the office of the judge competent to receive them, due to the transmission by the office to which they had been erroneously sent via PEC. The mere error in indicating the electronic address would in fact compel the judge to declare its inadmissibility, even though the documents had achieved their purpose, as in this case the provision of Article 184, paragraph 1, of the Code of Criminal Procedure is inapplicable, whereas Article 568, paragraph 5, of the Code of Criminal Procedure allows for the transmission of an appeal affected by substantive defects to the judge competent to decide on it.
"From another point of view," it would be unreasonable that "the same type of error, such as sending the document to a judge not indicated by law, produces a very different consequence if such judge is not competent to examine the appeal on the merits, or if such judge, more simply, is not competent to receive it."
1.6.– The fact that the challenged discipline is inspired – as emerges from the preparatory works of the regulatory intervention – by the need, also constitutionally relevant, to guarantee the reasonable duration of the process (Article 111, second paragraph, of the Constitution) through "the simplification of documents and procedures" on a transitional basis and until the full implementation of the telematic criminal process, exempting the registries from the burdensome activity of transmitting appeal documents erroneously received to other offices, would not serve to avert the highlighted vulnera. The implementation of the principle of reasonable duration of the process could not, in fact, justify the introduction of procedural rules that violate the principles, "of equal rank," enshrined in Articles 3 and 24 of the Constitution.
1.7.– Even within the system of the European Convention on Human Rights, the contracting States, which also enjoy a wide margin of appreciation in the regulation of procedural appeals, would be precluded from regulating the requirements for their admissibility with such rigor as to substantially prejudice the right of access to the judge, under penalty of violating Article 6, paragraph 1, of the ECHR (referencing the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, First Section, judgment of October 28, 2021, Succi and others v. Italy).
It would therefore be necessary to evaluate "whether the rigid formalism of the discipline introduced by Article 87-bis, paragraphs 7, letter c), and 8, of Legislative Decree no. 150/2022, with the impossibility even of amending or healing a purely formal defect, results in placing an excessive, as well as unjustified, limit on the exercise of the right to a fair trial."
2.– The President of the Council of Ministers has intervened in the two cases, with identically worded briefs, represented and defended by the State Attorney General's Office, asking that the questions be declared inadmissible or, in any case, unfounded.
2.1.– The intervenor first objects to the inadmissibility of the complaint referred to "Article 117, paragraph I, through the intermediary of Article 6, paragraph 2 [recte: paragraph 1] of the ECHR," since it was developed only in the reasoning of the referral order, without the relative parameter being reported in the dispositive, so as not to allow understanding if "a nullifying pronouncement is requested also with respect to this constitutional parameter."
2.2.– The questions would, in any case, be unfounded.
2.2.1.– Article 87-bis of Legislative Decree no. 150 of 2022, inserted during the conversion of Decree-Law no. 162 of 2022, would be aimed at "regulating – pending the full operation of the telematic portal of the criminal process – the communications between private parties and judicial offices," allowing the filing of documents at the PEC addresses of the judicial offices indicated in a specific decree of the DGSIA. Pursuant to this discipline, the appeal document – outside of precautionary matters – must be transmitted to the PEC address of the office that issued the challenged measure (paragraph 4), under penalty of inadmissibility (paragraph 7), to be declared by the same judge who issued the challenged measure (paragraph 8).
Article 87-bis would be aimed both at contracting, through the use of the telematic modality, the times for filing documents at judicial offices by external authorized subjects; and, above all, at allowing for the "effective and immediate sorting of incoming flows at the registries, in order to allow them to manage the workload, avoiding tiring supplementary verification and transmission activities to the competent offices" (citing Court of Cassation, Third Criminal Section, judgment no. 24604 of March 26-July 4, 2025; Cass., no. 11795 of 2024). The legislator would have for such purposes analytically regulated the "'telematic path' of the appeal document," in the exercise of the wide discretion that belongs to it in procedural matters, challengeable by this Court only to the measure of manifest unreasonableness or arbitrariness of the choices made (citing judgments no. 189 and no. 36 of 2025, no. 96 of 2024, no. 67 of 2023, and no. 230 of 2022).
The choice to sanction with inadmissibility the non-observance of the rules on the presentation of the appeal via telematic means would be the fruit of "a correct weighing between, on one hand, the need for simplification and acceleration of the procedural path and, on the other, the right of defense" and would not translate into a limitation of the right to appeal as an aspect of the right of defense referred to in Article 24 of the Constitution, not entailing either the contraction of the times for proposing the appeal, nor the exclusivity of the telematic filing mechanism of the appeal. In the transitional regime outlined by the challenged Article 87-bis, the possibility of filing the appeal document in paper form would in fact remain open, at the registry of the judge competent to receive it.
The removal of the sanction of inadmissibility, provided for by the challenged discipline, "would entail a case-by-case scrutiny of the effectiveness of the forwarding of the appeal document to non-enabled addresses, which would imply remitting the progression of the process to unpredictable and unregulated registry controls, which would inevitably end up impacting negatively both on the simplification of the procedural process, and on a rapid setting of the appeal."
2.2.2.– Nor would Article 3 of the Constitution be violated. The discipline provided by Article 568, paragraph 5, of the Code of Criminal Procedure, assumed by the referring party as tertium comparationis, would not be homogeneous, regarding substantive defects of the appeal document. While formal defects would pertain to "the respect of the rules on how the document must be drafted and presented," substantive defects would concern "the content of the document and its legitimacy on the merits." The former would be more serious than the latter, since they would render the appeal document "unsuitable [...] to introduce the new degree of judgment." The provision of the sanction of inadmissibility would thus be justified only in relation to them, consistent with the general layout of the procedural code, which at Article 591 provides for various hypotheses of inadmissibility of the appeal, including the violation of the rules on the presentation of the document, which "do not allow the formation of a valid procedural relationship."
Sending the appeal document to an incorrect PEC address could be assimilated to filing the same "in the registry of the judge ad quem instead of in that of the judge a quo," with an error in the methods of presenting the document subsisting in both cases. In such a hypothesis, the jurisprudence of legitimacy deemed the appeal inadmissible, based on the provision of Articles 582 and 591, paragraph 1, letter c), of the Code of Criminal Procedure, without the possibility of healing or application of Article 568, paragraph 5, of the Code of Criminal Procedure (citing Court of Cassation, First Criminal Section, judgment no. 4706 of November 17, 1992-January 13, 1993).
2.2.3.– Finally, there would be no contrast of the challenged discipline with Article 6 of the ECHR, since the obligation to send the appeal via PEC only to the addresses included in the list prepared by the DGSIA would not unjustifiably limit access to the judge and would instead constitute a preventative, "clear and foreseeable" regulation of the methods of access to the judge themselves, in implementation of the principle of fair trial referred to in Article 111, first paragraph, of the Constitution (citing Cass., 24604 of 2025).
The challenged discipline would contribute to realizing the principle of good performance of the public administration pursuant to Article 97 of the Constitution, strictly connected, in the present case, to that of the reasonable duration of the process, since "the prior identification of the certified electronic mail addresses allows the citizen, who makes use of technical defense, to trust in an immediate and rapid institution of the chosen proceeding given the exhaustiveness of the means and methods of appeal."
The ECHR Court itself would recognize to the contracting States the possibility of imposing rigorous formal requirements for the admissibility of the appeal, provided that the substance of the right of access to the judge is not prejudiced (citing the judgments of February 15, 2000, García Manibardo v. Spain, paragraph 36; July 31, 2001, Mortier v. France, paragraph 33; September 15, 2016, Trevisanato v. Italy, paragraph 36); such prejudice being absent in this case, given that the challenged discipline would not affect the deadlines for presenting the appeal, nor would it outline an exclusive method for proposing it.
Legal Reasoning (Considerations on the Law)
3.– With the orders indicated in the heading, the Court of Cassation, First Criminal Section, has raised – with reference to Articles 3 and 24 of the Constitution, as well as in relation to Article 6, paragraph 1, of the ECHR – questions of constitutional legitimacy of Article 87-bis, paragraphs 7, letter c), and 8, of Legislative Decree no. 150 of 2022, in the part in which their combined provisions "mandate the inadmissibility of the appeal transmitted to a certified electronic mail address other than the prescribed one (consisting of the address assigned to the office that issued the challenged measure) even when it reaches the judge a quo within the peremptory deadline for filing."
In both proceedings, the referring Court is seized with the appeal against the decisions of two Surveillance Magistrates of Bologna who declared inadmissible the complaints against their own previous decisions, as they were presented to PEC addresses attributable to the Surveillance Tribunal of the same city, competent to examine the relative complaints on the merits.
The two appellants in the judicia a quibus had not, therefore, observed the provisions referred to in the challenged Article 87-bis, paragraph 7, letter c), of Legislative Decree no. 150 of 2022, in the part in which it establishes that the appeal is inadmissible "when the document is transmitted to a certified electronic mail address not attributable [...] to the office that issued the challenged measure," and therefore also when it is attributable to the office competent for the judgment on the appeal. The inadmissibility of the appeal was therefore declared by the Surveillance Magistrates who had issued the challenged decisions in accordance with the provision of the subsequent paragraph 8, equally challenged (according to which, "[i]n the cases provided for by paragraph 7, the judge who issued the challenged measure declares, even ex officio, by ordinance, the inadmissibility of the appeal and orders the execution of the challenged measure").
In the two cases subject to the proceedings a quibus, however, the registry of the Surveillance Tribunal had transmitted the complaints, in paper form, to the Surveillance Office – competent for the receipt of the appeal – before the expiration of the deadline provided for the appeal itself; so that, the referring Court observes, the error would have been "healed" and would have remained "devoid of effective consequences."
In the referring party's opinion, therefore, the challenged combined provisions, imposing even in such cases the procedural sanction of the inadmissibility of the appeal, would stand in contrast with:
– the right of defense referred to in Article 24 of the Constitution, sacrificing the interested party's right to appeal in the face of a mere formal error;
– the principles of equality-reasonableness referred to in Article 3 of the Constitution, since Article 568, paragraph 5, of the Code of Criminal Procedure would not provide for the sanction of inadmissibility even in the face of an appeal affected by substantive defects (because proposed to an incompetent judge or with a means other than that indicated by law) and would indeed oblige the judge who received the document to transmit it to the competent judge, following any possible reclassification: which would highlight the unreasonableness of a normative solution that obliges the judge to declare the inadmissibility of an appeal even when the document has achieved its purpose;
– the right of access to the judge referred to in Article 6, paragraph 1, of the ECHR, which would be limited to an excessive and unjustified extent by a discipline inspired by rigid formalism.
4.– The two cases pose identical questions and deserve, therefore, to be joined for the purposes of the decision.
5.– The State Attorney General's Office objects to the inadmissibility of the question raised with reference to Article 6, paragraph 2 (recte: paragraph 1), of the ECHR, as it was proposed only in the reasoning of the referral order, without the relative parameter being reported in the dispositive.
The objection is not founded, in light of the constant jurisprudence of this Court, according to which "the identification of the parameters of the question of constitutional legitimacy [must] be carried out on the basis of a 'combined reading of the reasoning and the dispositive of the referral order' (judgment no. 94 of 2025, point 6 of the Legal Reasoning)," so that "the discrepancies between the reasoning and the dispositive [...] can be resolved through the use of ordinary hermeneutic criteria, when from the coordinated reading of the two parts of the act the effective will of the referring party emerges" (judgment no. 115 of 2025, point 4.3.1. of the Legal Reasoning, and in conformity with the numerous precedents cited therein)" (judgment no. 201 of 2025, point 5.1. of the Legal Reasoning).
The referring Court, in truth, directly evokes Article 6, paragraph 1, of the ECHR, without expressly indicating the parameter of Article 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, from which depends – by virtue of the principles for the first time enshrined by this Court with judgments no. 348 and no. 349 of 2007 – the very capacity of the conventional provisions to operate as interposed parameters in the judgment of constitutional legitimacy of the laws. However, such constitutional parameter must be considered implicitly recalled by the referring party, in light of the constant jurisprudence of this Court according to which "the question of constitutional legitimacy must be 'scrutinized having regard also to the constitutional parameters not formally evoked [...], should this act make clear reference to them, even if implicit [...], through the recall of the principles enunciated by them' (ex multis judgments no. 170 of 2008, no. 26 of 2003, no. 69 of 1999, no. 99 of 1997)" (judgment no. 227 of 2010, point 7 of the Legal Reasoning; for a recent application of this principle with respect to Article 11 of the Constitution, not formally evoked by the referring party even in the presence of a question of constitutional legitimacy formulated with reference to the law of the European Union, judgment no. 24 of 2025, point 2 of the Legal Reasoning; in an analogous sense, with respect to Article 3 of the Constitution, judgment no. 167 of 2025, point 6 of the Legal Reasoning).
6.– On the merits, the three complaints – with reference to Articles 3, 24, and (implicitly) 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 6, paragraph 1, of the ECHR – can be examined unitarily, since they all revolve around the essential argument according to which the "formalism" underlying the challenged discipline would unreasonably sacrifice the interested party's right of defense, sub specie of the right to appeal the decision that saw them unsuccessful in the previous degree of judgment.
In the judgment of this Court, such complaints are not founded in the terms that follow.
6.1.– Constant constitutional jurisprudence holds that "the accused's power to appeal relates [...] to the fundamental value expressed by the right of defense (Article 24 of the Constitution)" (judgment no. 34 of 2020, point 3.2. of the Legal Reasoning, as well as, in analogous terms, judgments no. 274 of 2009, point 3.1. of the Legal Reasoning, no. 26 of 2007 point 5.2. of the Legal Reasoning, and no. 98 of 1994 point 2 of the Legal Reasoning).
It is equally undisputed, on the other hand, that the legislator is not required to ensure protection for the right of defense in all cases with the same methods and with the same effects, well being able to differentiate the judicial protection with regard to the particularity of the case to be regulated, on condition that burdens and methods are not imposed such as to make "impossible or extremely difficult the exercise of the right of defense or the performance of the procedural activity" (lately, judgment no. 146 of 2025, point 4 of the Legal Reasoning; analogously, judgments no. 76 of 2025, point 6.1. of the Legal Reasoning, and no. 39 of 2025, point 4.2. of the Legal Reasoning; in substance, this principle is declined in matters of notifications, ex aliis, by judgments no. 148 of 2021 and no. 75 of 2019).
6.2.– As to the ECHR Court's jurisprudence regarding Article 6, paragraph 1, of the ECHR, it traces the right to appeal back to the general theme of the right to access a judge, which is an essential part of that guarantee. The general principle, expressed in particular by the judgment of the Grand Chamber of April 5, 2018, Zubac v. Croatia, is that the right of access to a court must be "practical and effective" and not "theoretical or illusory." Such a right is not unconditional and may be subject to limitations, well being able the States to provide for specific conditions of admissibility of appeals; however, the limitations applied must not restrict the individual's access to the tribunal in a manner or to an extent such as to compromise its very essence, must pursue a legitimate aim, and be proportionate to that aim (paragraphs 77 and 78).
As regards, in particular, the limitations on access to higher jurisdictions, in assessing their compliance with Article 6, paragraph 1, of the ECHR, the European Court of Human Rights is accustomed to taking into consideration a) the foreseeability of the restriction, b) whether it should be the petitioner or the State to bear the negative consequences of errors committed in the proceeding, c) the possible presence in the national discipline (or in the relative jurisprudence) of an "excessive formalism" (ECHR Court, judgment Zubac v. Croatia, paragraph 85, as well as, in civil matters, judgments of May 15, 2025, Vachik Karapetyan and others v. Armenia, paragraph 87; May 23, 2024, Patricolo and others v. Italy, paragraph 70; November 17, 2022, Makrylakis v. Greece, paragraph 34).
In application of these criteria, the ECHR Court has recognized on various occasions the violation of the conventional guarantee in relation to excessive formalisms relative to the requirements of appeal documents (for example, in criminal matters, judgments of January 13, 2011, Evaggelou v. Greece; November 3, 2009, Davran v. Turkey; June 25, 2009, Maresti v. Croatia; September 26, 2006, Labergère v. France; García Manibardo v. Spain; in civil matters, ex aliis, judgments of May 23, 2024, Patricolo and others v. Italy; November 21, 2024, Justine v. France; June 9, 2022, Xavier Lucas v. France; October 28, 2021, Succi and others v. Italy).
6.3.– On the basis of both tests deducible from constitutional and conventional jurisprudence, inspired otherwise by a common logic, this Court is now called upon to evaluate whether the sanction of inadmissibility of an appeal notified to a PEC address attributable to the judge competent for the appeal and not to the one that issued the challenged decision compresses the interested party's right to propose an appeal against such decision in an excessive, and therefore disproportionate, manner.
Such a verification presupposes the precise identification of the legitimate purposes of the challenged discipline and the evaluation of the proportionality with respect to such purposes of the limits that such discipline imposes on the interested party's right of defense. With the obvious clarification that the right to appeal a decision before a judge is physiologically subject to limits and conditions functional, among other things, to ensuring certainty to legal relationships, which are declined in particular in the setting of peremptory deadlines for the proposal of the appeal and of particular methods for its exercise, also in order to guarantee timeliness and efficiency in the management of litigation by the judicial system.
6.4.– As to, first of all, the purpose of the challenged provisions, they insert themselves into the context of a transitional discipline that the legislator adopted pending the start of the operation of the criminal telematic process portal (PPPT), after Article 24 of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, as converted, had for the first time regulated in our system the possibility of presenting appeals in criminal matters via PEC.
The discipline of Article 87-bis, paragraph 7, letter c), of Legislative Decree no. 150 of 2022 corresponds, in effect, to a system choice made by the Italian criminal procedural law, which has by now started on the path of digitalization of the entire criminal process, on the model of what has already happened for the civil and administrative processes (as well as for the constitutional judgment itself). Such a choice – object of abrupt acceleration during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, but long planned – entails the progressive overcoming of paper files, with the consequent potential zeroing, in the regime, of the times connected to their physical transmission from one office to another (as well as from the registry to the individual judges), which represent a cause by no means secondary to the excessive duration of criminal proceedings in our country. This is in implementation of the principle of the reasonable duration of processes – based, together, on Article 111, second paragraph, of the Constitution and on Article 6, paragraph 1, of the ECHR –, which this Court has recognized as "a hallmark identity of the justice of the process" (judgment no. 116 of 2023, point 6.1. of the Legal Reasoning; judgment no. 74 of 2022, point 5.1. of the Legal Reasoning), also in its projection as a subjective right of all persons involved in a criminal process.
Legislative Decree no. 150 of 2022 has, however, deemed it appropriate to maintain at present, alongside this ordinary solution, the possibility – reserved to "private parties" alone – of personally presenting the appeal, also through appointees, in the registry of the judge who issued the challenged decision: a possibility provided for, today, by the new paragraph 1-bis of Article 582 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which therefore continues to contemplate – evidently in consideration of the particular delicacy of the stakes in many criminal proceedings, which involve individual rights of supreme importance – the possibility of filing a paper copy of the appeal document, as an alternative to its presentation by telematic means. An analogous possibility is still recognized today, pursuant to Article 123, paragraph 1, of the Code of Criminal Procedure, to the detainee or internee in an institute for the execution of security measures, who has the faculty – among other things – to present appeals with a document received by the director of the penitentiary institute.
As for the identification of the PEC addresses suitable to receive the appeal document – and the corresponding sanction of inadmissibility in the case of sending to an incorrect address –, the challenged discipline constitutes nothing but the declination, in the digital context, of the general rule expressed by Article 582, paragraph 1, of the Code of Criminal Procedure, according to which the appeal document must be presented in the registry of the judge who issued the challenged decision. Such rule aims, evidently, to allow the office of the competent judge to attest without delay the irrevocability of the sentence, as soon as the deadline provided for its appeal expires uselessly; and conversely to allow them, where the appeal has been presented, to follow up on the consequent fulfillments, and in particular to provide promptly for the transmission of the file to the judge competent for the decision on the appeal (without having to wait, today, for the possible receipt of appeal documents presented in other registries and sent via ordinary mail, as happened under the force of the previous discipline: which was, in turn, a cause of not negligible delays in the definition of appellate judgments).
6.5.– The legitimacy of the purposes pursued by the legislator in indicating as a priority the telematic modality for the presentation of the appeal being undoubted, it remains to be verified whether the procedural sanction of the inadmissibility of the appeal in the case of sending to an incorrect address (and more precisely, to an address attributable to the judge competent for the appeal rather than to the one that issued the challenged decision) does not result in being excessive with respect to such purpose, resolving itself in a sacrifice of the right of defense disproportionate to the legitimate purposes pursued.
6.5.1.– Regarding this, it is necessary first of all to observe that already in an era prior to the introduction of telematic methods for the presentation of the appeal, the jurisprudence of legitimacy held that an appeal presented in the registry of the judge competent to examine its merits, rather than in that of the judge who had issued the challenged decision, was inadmissible pursuant to the combined provisions of Articles 582 and 591, paragraph 1, letter c), of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and that such inadmissibility was insusceptible to healing (Cass., no. 4706 of 1993, never denied by subsequent jurisprudence).
To the rigor of this rule, however, a tempering had been added, deeming admissible an appeal presented in the registry of the judge competent for the appeal in the case in which it had been remitted, within the terms of the law, to the registry of the judge who had issued the decision object of the grievance. In any case, the risk remained on the interested party that the appeal, presented in an office different from that indicated by the law, was declared inadmissible for untimeliness, because it arrived at the prescribed recipient after the expiration of the deadline to appeal (ex multis, Court of Cassation, Third Criminal Section, judgment of March 5-May 13, 2020, no. 14774; Sixth Criminal Section, judgment of December 5, 2019-January 9, 2020, no. 435; Second Criminal Section, judgment of November 30, 2018-January 23, 2019, no. 3261). Such principle had been in substance confirmed also by the United Sections, in a pronouncement having as its object the bordering problem of the place of presentation of the petition for cassation in precautionary matters, in which it had been reiterated that, in case of presentation of the appeal to a judge other than the one competent to receive it, the risk remained on the appellant that the appeal, if presented to a different office, was declared inadmissible for untimeliness (Cass., no. 1626 of 2021).
6.5.2.– The criminal jurisprudence formed on the provisions challenged here has provided differentiated responses to the problem of whether it is admissible to appeal sent to a PEC address attributable to the judicial office competent to receive it and included in the DGSIA decree, but different from that deputized for the receipt of a certain type of appeal (in the affirmative sense, Court of Cassation, Sixth Criminal Section, judgments of October 1-21, 2025, no. 34303; May 12-July 2, 2025, no. 24346; Fifth Criminal Section, no. 23192 of 2025; again, Sixth Criminal Section, November 9, 2023-February 1, 2024, no. 4633 and February 14-May 9, 2023, no. 19433; in the opposite sense, Cass. no. 47557 of 2024); as well as to the problem of whether it is admissible to appeal sent to a PEC address attributable to the judicial office competent to receive it, but not included in the list referred to in the DGSIA decree (in the negative sense, the prevailing jurisprudence: ex multis, Court of Cassation, Fifth Criminal Section, judgment of July 1-31, 2025, no. 28163; Third Criminal Section, judgment no. 24604 of 2025; Fifth Criminal Section, judgment of October 31, 2024-January 21, 2025, no. 2458; Third Criminal Section, judgment of March 14-June 4, 2024, no. 22305; in the sense instead of the admissibility of the appeal, if the document, within the deadline provided for its filing, was materially acquired by the registry of the judge competent to decide, Sixth Criminal Section, judgment no. 19415 of 2025, referenced by the Sixth Criminal Section, judgments of October 15-November 17, 2025, no. 37358 and no. 34303 of 2025).
6.5.3.– This latter problem was recently submitted to the United Sections, which deemed it appropriate to adhere in principle to the majority orientation that considers inadmissible an appeal transmitted to a PEC address attributable to the judicial office competent to receive it, but not included in the DGSIA list (Court of Cassation, United Criminal Sections, judgment of December 11, 2025-February 18, 2026, no. 6565).
The pronouncement values both the literal text of Article 87-bis of Legislative Decree no. 150 of 2022 which configures precise and exhaustive causes of inadmissibility; and the ratio of simplification, rationalization, and acceleration of the procedural scans that inspires the entire reform implemented in 2022. The latter – the United Sections observed – "does not limit itself to pursuing, through recourse to telematic modalities, acceleratory objectives of the times for filing documents, but also responds to the need to guarantee an effective sorting of incoming flows at the registries, so as to allow an orderly management of the workload and avoid supplementary verification and transmission activities to the competent offices." According to the Court of legitimacy, "[a]dmitting an extensive or flexible interpretation of the system, such as to allow filing at any address attributable to the judicial office, including those not institutionally deputized for the receipt of documents, would end up annulling every requirement of form and would stand in contrast with the ratio legis and with the principle of procedural legality."
The United Sections have, however, affirmed that the appeal remains admissible in the hypothesis in which the clerk assigned to the office has forwarded it to the telematic address deputized to receive it within the limitation period provided by law. According to the Court of Cassation, on one hand such possibility is not excluded by the literal tenor of the challenged Article 87-bis; on the other, the internal transmission between PEC mailboxes of the same judicial office guarantees in any case "the respect of the telematic channel provided for by the legislator, safeguarding, at the same time, the effective exercise of the right of defense, sub specie of the right to appeal, which is submitted, in a timely manner, to the competent judge with methods conforming to the system. The technological medium, moreover, allows easily such transmission and the typicality of the medium itself guarantees that the received PEC remains unaltered with respect to the one forwarded. The competent clerk, for their part, upon receiving the appeal forwarded to them telematically from another address, must be considered perfectly able to carry out the checks on the technical specifications referred to in paragraph 1 of Article 87-bis, as a guarantee of the formal and functional regularity of the document, and to give course to the further fulfillments provided for by the subsequent paragraph 2." Such solution ensures – the United Sections emphasized – the "digital continuity" of the process and its compliance with the textual discipline of Article 87-bis and its ratio, allowing the document to reach the office deputized to receive it within the terms of the law, by means of the forwarding of the PEC.
The United Sections have however specified that "no obligation is exigible, as it is not provided for by the law, on the part of the registry not competent for the receipt of the grievance, to transmit it to the competent office, so that the risk deriving from the missed timely transmission to the latter lies exclusively on the interested party to appeal."
Otherwise, the appeal cannot be considered admissible in the case in which the document, initially sent to an incorrect PEC address (as it is not included in the DGSIA decree), was delivered in paper form to the office competent to receive it within the terms of the law. To reason otherwise – the United Sections highlighted – would introduce an undue commixture between the discipline of telematic appeal and the discipline of paper appeal, as well as an overlapping of the physical domicile to the digital one. Furthermore, such a solution would not allow the control of the technical characteristics of the document, which belongs to the registry of the judge assigned to the receipt and implies the verification of the technical specifications provided for by the secondary legislation. Moreover – the Court of Cassation still noted – paragraph 2 of Article 87-bis, in listing the tasks of the registry personnel relating to the receipt of documents of the defenders, mentions that of providing for the insertion into the paper file of the analog copy of the received document "with the attestation of the date of receipt in the certified electronic mail box of the office," which highlights how the correct transmission to the address included in the DGSIA decree conditions the very regular keeping of the file.
6.6.– In the opinion of this Court, the ratio of the solution now remembered appears easily transferable also to the different problem, in discussion in this seat, of whether it is admissible to appeal sent to an address included in the DGSIA lists, but attributable to the office of the judge competent for the appeal and not to the one that adopted the challenged decision: the appeal is, in principle, inadmissible pursuant to the provisions challenged here. It is however admissible in the hypothesis in which it was forwarded, on the initiative of the registry to which the presentation address is attributable, to the telematic address – also included in the DGSIA list – referred to the office of the judge who issued the decision, provided that the forwarding is carried out within the peremptory deadline established for the appeal itself; it being necessary, on the other hand, to exclude that the registry to which the document was erroneously sent has an obligation to provide in such sense, so that the risk of the missed timely transmission lies exclusively on the interested party to appeal. The appeal remains, instead, inadmissible where the document is transmitted in paper form, even if within the deadline set for the appeal, by the registry of the judge who received it to the one competent to receive it.
Such an interpretation of the current legislation realizes, in the opinion of this Court, a reasonable tempering between the opposite interests, all of constitutional and conventional importance, such as to present itself, indeed, as a restrictive interpretation, constitutionally and conventionally oriented, of the challenged discipline, without standing in contrast with the legislative text.
More specifically, the solution in question appears suitable to overcome the double test, constitutional and conventional, of which it was said a moment ago (supra, 6.1. and 6.2.).
6.6.1.– The procedural sanction of inadmissibility in the case of presentation of the appeal to an erroneous telematic address is, for starters, clearly established by the law, and therefore easily foreseeable for the interested parties.
The formula contained in the challenged Article 87-bis, paragraph 7, of Legislative Decree no. 150 of 2022 is, in this regard, unequivocal: "the appeal is [...] inadmissible [...] when the document is transmitted to a certified electronic mail address not attributable, according to what is indicated by the decree of the Director General for Automated Information Systems referred to in paragraph 1, to the office that issued the challenged decision."
As emphasized by the United Sections in the pronouncement lastly cited, the decree of the DGSIA that identifies such addresses is a general, public act, accessible via the internet, so as to allow any defender to acquire knowledge of it.
On the other hand, the provision referred to in the challenged paragraph 7 of Article 87-bis is largely reproductive of the analogous discipline referred to in paragraphs 6-ter, 6-quinquies, 6-sexies, and 6-septies of Article 24 of Decree-Law no. 137 of 2020, as converted, which had for the first time introduced a general modality of telematic presentation of appeals in criminal matters, to cope with the pandemic emergency then in progress.
In another respect still, as has already been observed, the general rule according to which the appeal against criminal decisions other than those having a precautionary nature must be presented to the judge who issued the challenged decision, rather than to the one competent for the appeal, has always been provided for by Article 582, paragraph 1, of the Code of Criminal Procedure; just as Article 591, paragraph 1, letter c), of the Code of Criminal Procedure has always provided for the sanction of the inadmissibility of the appeal in the case of non-observance of the provisions referred to in Article 582. So that the challenged provisions present themselves simply as leges speciales, applicable on a transitional basis pending the complete implementation of the PPPT, with respect to that general discipline, from which they borrow, moreover, the underlying principle – well known to every defender – relative to the identification of the judge competent to receive the appeal.
6.6.2.– The solution in question, furthermore, does not sacrifice in a disproportionate manner the interested party's right of defense in the name of an unreasonable formalism.
First of all, it is necessary to reiterate that the current procedural discipline allows in any case the interested party to personally present the appeal, with the traditional paper methods, pursuant to Article 582, paragraph 1-bis, of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and that the detainee or internee retains even today the possibility to present appeals with a document received by the director of the structure (supra, 6.4.).
But even disregarding such faculties, which the legislator has discretionarily deemed to preserve, the interpretive solution of the United Sections – if extended to the theme in discussion in this seat – allows in any case to deem the defect healed, and therefore not to sacrifice the interested party's right to appeal, when the appeal document nonetheless achieves its effect in full in useful time: which occurs when it is forwarded, within the deadline established by the law, by the clerk of the office that received it to the certified electronic mail address of the office competent for the presentation of the appeal.
In such a case, the timely transmission of the document to the competent registry, in the form and with the requirements established by the law, on the initiative of a clerk who is not legally bound to such a fulfillment, allows for the healing of the original inadmissibility of the document: exactly as would happen where it were the interested party themselves, having noticed the error – perhaps even following a report from the registry where they presented the appeal –, to repeat the sending of the document via PEC to the correct address. In one hypothesis or the other, the registry of the judge who issued the challenged decision will in fact be placed in a condition to carry out all the fulfillments provided for by Article 87-bis, paragraph 2, of Legislative Decree no. 150 of 2022, as well as to verify the authenticity of the defender's signature pursuant to the subsequent paragraph 3.
In such a situation, holding firm the procedural sanction of inadmissibility only by reason of the original error committed by the defender would actually result in being an expression of excessive formalism, in the face of the achievement – following the spontaneous activation of the registry officials – of all the purposes that the legislator pursued through the challenged discipline: so that the corrective in question, in the judgment of this Court, represents – more than a constitutionally compatible interpretive choice among the various abstractly possible – a dutiful constitutionally and conventionally oriented interpretation of the challenged discipline.
An opposite solution appears instead compatible as much with the Constitution, as with Article 6 of the ECHR, when the appeal, once it has been received by the registry of the judge competent for the appeal, has been transmitted by them brevi manu in paper form to the registry of the judge who adopted the challenged decision. In fact, as the United Sections observed in the pronouncement cited many times, the interruption of the digital continuity of the document produces an undue commixture of the two paths, "paper" and "digital," that the legislator intended to keep sharply distinct, preventing in particular the registry of the judge competent to receive the appeal from verifying, among other things, the authenticity of the document and the relative signature, the correct identification of the domicile of the defender authorized to receive notifications and information relative to the proceeding, as well as the compliance with the technical specifications provided for by the secondary regulatory acts in force.
So that, in the hypothesis lastly considered, the maintenance of the procedural sanction of inadmissibility cannot be considered in the manner of a disproportionate restriction of the interested party's right of defense, nor of an useless formalism.
6.6.3.– It cannot, on the other hand, be considered that there is an unreasonable disparity of treatment with respect to the discipline provided for by Article 568, paragraph 5, of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which allows the "reclassification" of the appeal proposed with a means other than that allowed by the law, obliging the incompetent judge to transmit it to the competent judge.
Article 568, paragraph 5, of the Code of Criminal Procedure does not constitute, in fact, a tertium comparationis that is homogeneous, it being a provision that sanctions the (sole) irrelevance of the classification attributed by the appellant to their own appeal, the admissibility of which remains however subordinated to the respect of the requirements provided for by Articles 581 and following of the Code of Criminal Procedure: among which, precisely, the same general rule, sanctioned by Article 582, paragraph 1, of the Code of Criminal Procedure, according to which the appeal document must be presented by means of filing in the registry of the judge who issued the challenged decision. It is not by chance that the jurisprudence of legitimacy has always excluded that the healing mechanism of Article 568, paragraph 5, of the Code of Criminal Procedure can be used to evade the causes of inadmissibility of the appeal document provided for by Article 591 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, among which the non-observance of the provision of Article 582, paragraph 1 (for all, Cass., no. 4706 of 1993, as well as First Criminal Section, judgment of March 31-May 19, 1993, no. 1370).
6.6.4.– Finally, it is indeed true that the consequences of the inadmissibility of the appeal by effect of an error of the defender fall on an innocent interested party, who could suffer serious and subsequently difficultly remediable prejudices, especially where the grievance has as its object decisions susceptible to acquiring the force of res judicata.
Similar prejudices are, however, susceptible to occurring in every proceeding in which a defender is involved, to whose competence and diligence in the fulfillment of the professional mandate the individual interests and the rights of the respective clients are always entrusted. Upon such competence and diligence, the system cannot but rely in turn, in the awareness of the essential role that technical defense plays in the procedural system, necessarily characterized by a high rate of complexity: and this to the ultimate end of ensuring the implementation, in every single case in which the intervention of the defense is requested, of the principles and the rights that the Constitution recognizes to every member of the public.
6.7.– From all this it follows that the questions raised are not founded, provided that the combined provisions of the challenged rules are interpreted in the sense that inadmissibility remains excluded in the hypothesis in which the appeal document has been forwarded, on the initiative of the registry to which the PEC address to which it was erroneously presented is attributable, to the PEC address – also included in the DGSIA list – referred to the office of the judge who issued the decision, where the forwarding is effected within the peremptory deadline established for the appeal itself.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
having joined the cases,
declares not founded, in the sense of what is in the reasoning, the questions of constitutional legitimacy of Article 87-bis, paragraphs 7, letter c), and 8, of Legislative Decree no. 150 of October 10, 2022 (Implementation of Law no. 134 of September 27, 2021, delegating the Government to ensure the efficiency of the criminal process, as well as on matters of restorative justice and provisions for the swift resolution of judicial proceedings), raised, with reference to Articles 3, 24, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the latter in relation to Article 6, paragraph 1, of the European Convention on Human Rights, by the Court of Cassation, First Criminal Section, with the orders indicated in the heading.
Decided in Rome, at the seat of the Constitutional Court, Palazzo della Consulta, on March 23, 2026.
Signed:
Giovanni AMOROSO, President
Francesco VIGANÒ, Reporting Judge
Igor DI BERNARDINI, Clerk
Filed in the Clerk's Office on May 14, 2026