ORDER NO. 79
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 issued the following
ORDER
in the proceedings regarding the constitutional legitimacy of Articles 2, 4, 11, and 13 of Law no. 237 of December 20, 2012 (Provisions for the implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court), initiated by the Court of Appeal of Rome, Fourth Criminal Section, in the criminal proceedings against O.A.H. N., by order dated October 30, 2025, registered under no. 227 of the 2025 register of orders and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic no. 48, first special series, of the year 2025.
Having examined the petitions for intervention by L.M. B.R. and the President of the Council of Ministers;
having examined the motion to schedule a chamber hearing for the decision on the admissibility of the intervention, filed by L.M. B.R.;
having heard the Reporting Judge, Giovanni Pitruzzella, in the chamber hearing of April 13, 2026;
deliberated in the chamber hearing of April 13, 2026.
Noting that, by order dated October 30, 2025, registered under no. 227 of the 2025 register of orders, the Court of Appeal of Rome, Fourth Criminal Section, has raised questions of constitutional legitimacy regarding Articles 2, 4, 11, and 13 of Law no. 237 of December 20, 2012 (Provisions for the implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court), with reference to Articles 11, 101, second paragraph, and 117, first paragraph, of the Constitution, the latter in relation to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, including the Final Act and annexes, adopted by the United Nations Diplomatic Conference in Rome on July 17, 1998, and to «Council Decision 2011/168/CFSP of 21 March 2011 on the International Criminal Court and repealing Common Position 2003/444/CFSP», to the extent that they «do not provide that the Public Prosecutor must formulate their requests and the Court of Appeal of Rome must deliberate upon them even following the direct transmission of said requests for cooperation by the International Criminal Court»;
that, by an act filed on December 9, 2025, L.M. B.R. intervened in the proceedings, asserting, as the basis for the admissibility of the intervention, the possession of a qualified interest, connected to the subject matter of the main proceedings and, therefore, relevant pursuant to Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for Proceedings before the Constitutional Court;
that L.M. B.R. requested an expedited scheduling of the chamber hearing regarding the admissibility of the intervention, pursuant to Article 5, paragraph 1, of the Supplementary Rules;
that the President of the Court, by decree of January 22, 2026, scheduled the chamber hearing for April 13, 2026;
that, on March 23, 2026, the President of the Council of Ministers, represented and defended by the State Attorney General’s Office, filed a brief requesting that the intervention be declared inadmissible.
Considering that, pursuant to Article 5, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules, the parties that have entered an appearance and the applicant have the right, within ten days of the notification of the President of the Court’s decree, «to file, by electronic means, brief memoranda concerning exclusively the issue of the admissibility of the intervention»;
that the decree of the President of the Court was notified on January 22, 2026, and therefore the memorandum filed by the President of the Council of Ministers on March 23, 2026, is untimely, as the prescribed ten-day term had already fully elapsed;
that, according to the settled case law of this Court, participation in incidental proceedings on constitutional legitimacy is reserved, in addition to the President of the Council of Ministers and, in the case of regional law, the President of the Regional Executive (Articles 3 and 4, paragraphs 1 and 2, of the Supplementary Rules), to subjects possessing a qualified interest, immediately inherent to the substantive legal relationship at issue in the proceedings and not merely regulated, like any other, by the provision or provisions under challenge (Article 4, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules; in this regard, *ex multis*, Judgment no. 142 of 2025, point 4.2.1 of the Legal Considerations);
that the substantive legal relationship to which the qualified interest must be inherent is the one forming the subject of the main proceedings (Order no. 8 of 2026);
that, therefore, to establish the admissibility of an intervention, it is not sufficient that the third party’s interest might be affected by the consequences of a judgment of unconstitutionality; rather, it is necessary that the outcome of the incidental proceedings prejudices the third party's legal position in an immediate and irreparable manner (Judgment no. 181 of 2024, point 2.2 of the Legal Considerations);
that, in particular, the impact on the third party's position must stem directly and immediately from the effect that this Court's ruling produces on the substantive legal relationship forming the subject of the main proceedings (Order no. 60 of 2025);
that such requirements are not met in the case at hand;
that the admissibility of the intervention cannot be justified by a generic interest in «contributing to ascertaining with a domestic court the actual legal correctness or otherwise of the failure to validate the arrest and the failure to surrender» O.A.H. N. to the International Criminal Court;
that the alleged status of a person harmed by the «failure to activate cooperation and surrender» of O.A.H. N. is also not decisive, nor is the observation regarding the impossibility of asserting such «substantive and procedural legal status» in court;
that there is no link of immediate inherence between the subject of the main proceedings, which concerns the request for cooperation formulated by the International Criminal Court, and the subjective position of the intervening party, which anticipates a claim for damages caused by the lack of cooperation with the International Criminal Court;
that, therefore, the ruling of this Court is not capable of causing immediate and irreparable prejudice to the subjective position of the intervening party, who will be able to obtain full judicial protection in the appropriate fora, through the examination of the autonomous and peculiar prerequisites of the claim for damages outlined in the act of intervention;
that, ultimately, the intervention filed must be declared inadmissible.
Having regard to Articles 4 and 5 of the Supplementary Rules for Proceedings before the Constitutional Court.
FOR THESE REASONS
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
declares the intervention filed by L.M. B.R. inadmissible.
So decided in Rome, at the seat of the Constitutional Court, Palazzo della Consulta, on April 13, 2026.
Signed:
Giovanni AMOROSO, President
Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Reporting Judge
Igor DI BERNARDINI, Chancellor
Filed in the Registry on May 14, 2026
The anonymized version is, in its text, compliant with the original