JUDGMENT NO. 96

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 570-bis of the Criminal Code, brought by the Ordinary Court of Varese, Criminal Section, sitting as a single judge, in the criminal proceedings against L. C., by order of September 23, 2025, registered under no. 213 of the 2025 register of orders and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic no. 45, first special series, of the year 2025.

Having seen the act of intervention of the President of the Council of Ministers;

having heard in the chambers on March 23, 2026, the Reporting Judge Filippo Patroni Griffi;

having deliberated in the chambers on March 23, 2026.

Statement of Facts

1.— By order of September 23, 2025, registered under no. 213 of the 2025 register of orders, the Ordinary Court of Varese, Criminal Section, sitting as a single judge, raised questions regarding the constitutional legitimacy of Article 570-bis of the Criminal Code, in reference to Articles 3 and 27, third paragraph, of the Constitution, insofar as it does not provide for the prosecution of the offense of violating family assistance obligations in the event of separation or dissolution of marriage to be subject to a complaint by the injured party.

1.1.– The referring court reports that, within the scope of proceedings concerning the failure to pay the monthly maintenance allowance for the spouse, fixed by the order of the Court of Varese at 1,000 euros per month during separation, a withdrawal of the complaint by the spouse was received.

1.2.– Regarding relevance, the court a quo assumes the direct and current impact of the contested provision for the purpose of defining the case, given that, according to established case law of legitimacy, the offense in question is an autonomous legal category that adopts the sentencing framework from Article 570 of the Criminal Code, but not the regime of prosecution, which remains the ordinary ex officio regime. Consequently, an interpretation diverging from that established by the Court of Cassation regarding this procedural regime is not feasible.

1.3.– On the merits of the issues raised, the referring court, while aware of the constitutional case law according to which choices regarding the procedural regime of offenses are independent of their gravity, asserts the manifest irrationality of the procedural regime of the offense in question, in light of the different provisions for criminal cases punished more severely. Even if these are not "identical" in structure so as to justify scrutiny under the principle of equal treatment, they present "traits of accentuated structural similarity (in particular, as relevant here, by the fact that both center on and are exhausted by an analogous material object of a pecuniary nature)."

The Varese Court focuses its arguments on the comparison with the offenses under Articles 624 and 625, last paragraph, of the Criminal Code (regulating theft and aggravated theft, respectively), which, if committed to the detriment of a legally separated spouse, are prosecuted ex officio under Article 649, second paragraph, of the Criminal Code. It emphasizes that these are offenses sanctioned with a more severe penalty (up to ten years of imprisonment in addition to a pecuniary penalty), and that, with respect to the offense in question, they have the same object (patrimonial assets) and the same parties, both active and passive, namely separated spouses.

The referring court rejects the notion that the peculiarities of the challenged provision can justify the alleged unreasonableness of the regulatory framework. On one hand, the fact that there is a breach of a judicial order (the determination of the allowance) cannot be a decisive factor, as prosecution subject to complaint is provided for the crime of malicious failure to execute a court order under Article 388 of the Criminal Code. On the other hand, the public nature of the claim under Article 156 of the Civil Code (maintenance allowance for a separated spouse without liability) cannot be invoked, considering that the primary function of the benefit is to maintain the standard of living enjoyed for the spouse with lower income capacity (as clarified, among the most recent rulings, by the Court of Cassation, First Civil Section, orders February 20, 2025, no. 4530 and February 11, 2025, no. 3551).

The Varese Court, finally, excludes that the reasonableness of ex officio prosecution can be justified by its greater capacity to act as an instrument for stimulating compliance. The validity of this consideration—the referring court continues—is denied not only by the legislative choices expressed by the aforementioned Article 388 of the Criminal Code, but by the case law of this Court, which, in judgment no. 71 of 2024, stated conversely that prosecution subject to complaint acts as an indirect persuasive tool, rather than ex officio prosecution. The unsuitability of the ex officio procedural regime to have concrete preventive effects is, moreover, confirmed by the general lack of public awareness regarding procedural regimes, as well as the consideration that the prospect of a conviction before the filing of a complaint appears physiologically abstract and remote to debtors. Nor does such a regime seem capable of stimulating subsequent restorative behaviors, as late payment remains indifferent for the purposes of declaring liability, outside the narrow limits of the reform brought to the first paragraph of Article 131-bis of the Criminal Code by Article 1, paragraph 1, letter c) of Legislative Decree no. 150 of October 10, 2022 (Implementation of Law no. 134 of September 27, 2021, delegating the Government to improve the efficiency of the criminal trial, as well as matters of restorative justice and provisions for the swift definition of judicial proceedings). Conversely, it is the prosecution subject to complaint that constitutes a useful tool for the extrajudicial settlement of conflict, as implicitly recognized by this Court with judgment no. 248 of 2020 and, more recently, with order no. 106 of 2024, and in any case acts as an incentive for the perpetrator to restore the victim in the prospect of benefiting from the extinguishing effect under Article 162-ter of the Criminal Code.

Finally, the court a quo denounces the contradiction of the contested provision with the principle of the rehabilitative purpose of the penalty under Article 27, third paragraph, of the Constitution, as the criminal sanction is perceived as unjust when imposed even if the beneficiary of the pecuniary award does not manifest a punitive intent, or even more so, when such intent ceases following the fulfillment of the payment obligation.

2.— The President of the Council of Ministers, represented and defended by the State Attorney General, intervened in the proceedings, requesting that the issues raised be declared inadmissible or rejected due to their manifest groundlessness.

2.1.— Regarding the first aspect, it is argued that there is a lack of relevance due to an insufficient description of the facts of the case before the court a quo.

According to the reconstruction provided by the referring court, a potential declaration of constitutional illegitimacy would result in the immediate non-prosecutability of the criminal action due to the extinction of the offense by withdrawal of the complaint, which would have been tacitly accepted by the defendant as it was not expressly challenged. However, the intervener argues, this attributes value to the tacit behavior of the defendant, referring to a supposed act (the failure to challenge the withdrawal of the complaint under Article 155 of the Criminal Code) which would have required a clear description of the facts following the withdrawal—a description entirely absent from the order—from which one could deduce, without ambiguity, the defendant's intent not to challenge it.

2.2.— Regarding the merits, concerning the challenges related to the violation of the principle of reasonableness, the State Attorney's Office cites constitutional case law on identical preceding criminal provisions under Article 12-sexies of Law no. 898 of December 1, 1970 (Regulation of cases of dissolution of marriage) and Article 3 of Law no. 54 of February 8, 2006 (Provisions on the separation of parents and joint custody of children).

The differential elements between the cases under comparison are highlighted, which are deemed sufficient to exclude, regarding the requirement to restore the principle of equality, the requested extension of the prosecution regime subject to complaint to the criminal offense under today's constitutional legitimacy scrutiny.

First and foremost, the legal interest protected by the criminal sanction is highlighted, identifiable, for the provision of Article 570-bis of the Criminal Code, as family assistance (understood, according to some interpreters, in physical, moral, and economic senses, and, according to others, in the primary economic needs of the family both in its unity and at the moment of breakdown). Therefore, there is a clear distinction from the protective ratio underlying aggravated theft, identifiable, according to some, exclusively in the public interest directly related to the principle of inviolability of all patrimonial assets, namely the interest concerning the maintenance of security in the possession of "movable or mobilizable things," and, according to others, in the maintenance of a peaceful and undisturbed relationship of individuals with property. Moreover, the systematic placement of Article 570-bis of the Criminal Code within crimes against the family and Article 624 of the Criminal Code within crimes against property is eloquent in this sense, leaving aside any consideration, emphasized by the referring court, on the patrimonial nature of the economic service whose non-fulfillment integrates the factual element of the offense under Article 570-bis of the Criminal Code.

The State Attorney General further remarks that the full availability of the assets protected by criminal law in the "predatory case" adequately justifies the different prosecution regime entrusted to the initiative of the injured party, whereas such power is not granted to the separated spouse who is a victim of the failure to respect post-marital solidarity obligations, in the non-unreasonable exercise of the legislature's discretion, taking into account the particular significance of these obligations in the separation phase, that is, a phase of crisis but of persistent vitality of the family community.

Further considerations are made with reference to Article 570, first paragraph, of the Criminal Code, observing that the referring court believes it configures the same offense, although—it is emphasized—it presupposes specialized elements of conduct absent in the crime under Article 570-bis of the Criminal Code (such as abandonment of the domestic domicile or conduct contrary to the order or morality of families) and a very peculiar manifestation thereof (evasion of assistance obligations inherent in the quality of spouse), whereas in Article 570-bis of the Criminal Code, the punishable conduct consists in the violation of economic obligations in the matter of the separation of spouses.

Having stated this, the Attorney General recalls that, according to constitutional case law, the choice of the procedural regime of offenses involves legislative policy and must therefore remain entrusted to discretionary evaluations of the legislature, presupposing balancing of interests and criminal policy options that are often very complex, subject to review in constitutional legitimacy proceedings only for manifest irrationality.

Regarding the further argument of the referring court about an alleged lesser aptitude of ex officio prosecution to constitute an instrument for stimulating compliance, it is recalled that this Court has clearly expressed its position, stating that "it cannot be denied that the system of incriminations relating to family relations is, as a whole, fragmentary and disharmonious" (judgment no. 220 of 2015).

In closing, regarding the denounced friction with the rehabilitative purpose of the penalty, the Attorney General believes the argument of the subjective perception of the injustice of the sanctioning treatment, in the face of the subsequent lack of interest of the victim in the prosecution of the offense, is misplaced, given that the afflictive connotation of the criminal sanction finds persistent justification, from a rehabilitative perspective, in the protection of interests that transcend those of the immediate victim of the offense itself.

Considered in law

3.— By order registered under no. 213 of the 2025 register of orders, the Court of Varese, Criminal Section, sitting as a single judge, raised questions regarding the constitutional legitimacy of Article 570-bis of the Criminal Code, in reference to Articles 3 and 27, third paragraph, of the Constitution, insofar as it does not provide for the prosecution of the offense of violating family assistance obligations in the event of separation or dissolution of marriage to be subject to a complaint by the injured party.

4.— Preliminarily, the exception of the State Attorney General regarding the inadmissibility of the questions due to an insufficient description of the facts must be examined.

It is noted, on this point, that according to the reconstruction by the court a quo, a potential declaration of constitutional illegitimacy would result in the immediate non-prosecutability of the criminal action due to the extinction of the offense by withdrawal of the complaint, which would have been tacitly accepted by the defendant as it was not expressly challenged. In this way, however, value would have been attributed to the tacit behavior of the defendant, referring to a supposed act (the failure to challenge the withdrawal of the complaint under Article 155 of the Criminal Code), which would have instead deserved a clear description of the facts subsequent to the withdrawal—a description entirely absent from the order—from which one could deduce, without ambiguity, the defendant's intent not to challenge it.

4.1.— The exception is not well-founded.

In the argument of the Attorney General, to deem the burden of justification satisfied, an analytical description of all events following the withdrawal of the complaint would have been necessary, as well as an analytical evaluation of the reasons why such events should be considered unsuitable to infer an implicit intent on the part of the defendant not to challenge it.

Such a burden, however, falls outside the perimeter of what is required to satisfy the requirement of a plausible and adequate justification of the referral order, which, according to established constitutional case law, must contain "indications sufficient for a correct reconstruction of the facts subject to the court a quo proceedings, necessary to evaluate both the relevance of the question of constitutional legitimacy and the non-manifest groundlessness thereof" (among the most recent, judgment no. 31 of 2025).

5.— On the merits, the questions are not well-founded in reference to both evoked parameters.

6.— Constitutional case law is constant in recognizing wide margins of discretion to the legislature with reference to choices regarding the regime of prosecution of offenses, affirming "that—in general—the sanctioning choices of the legislature can be reviewed by this Court only within the limits of manifest unreasonableness (among many, judgments no. 190 of 2020, no. 155 and no. 40 of 2019, no. 222 of 2018 and no. 236 of 2016); and that such a standard applies—more particularly—also with respect to choices regarding the prosecution regime of individual offenses (order no. 178 of 2003 and previous cases cited therein)" (judgment no. 248 of 2020).

From this latter perspective, it has been pointed out several times that the prosecution regime—subject to complaint or ex officio—presupposes delicate and often very complex balancing of interests; observing, in particular, that the choice regarding such a regime must not be "necessarily connected to the greater or lesser gravity of the offense, as revealed by the measure of the penalty (judgment no. 7 of 1987, order no. 91 of 2001), as it may also correlate to the particularity of the case and the good that is offended by the criminal conduct (order no. 27 of 1971)," and that the option for prosecution subject to complaint does not necessarily stem from the "disposable character of the right protected by the criminal provision" and from the "merely private nature of the offended interest" (judgment no. 220 of 2015).

Furthermore, in emphasizing the multiplicity of possible reasons underlying the legislature's choice to provide for prosecution subject to complaint for crimes that offend individual rights, it has also been clarified that they can be identified "both in the function of objectives of procedural deflation, directly connected to the principle—of constitutional and conventional rank—of the reasonable duration of the trial, and with a view to favoring conciliatory and restorative solutions, capable of satisfying the fair need for protection of the victim without necessarily having to arrive at the outcome of conviction and the infliction of punishment" (order no. 106 of 2024).

Moreover, even if, in some recent rulings, there has been talk of "a growing favor for the procedural regime subject to complaint for crimes that offend individual rights," it has always been highlighted that this is limited to cases where "the fact is not of particular gravity and the victim is not in conditions of vulnerability, which could vitiate their capacity to decide freely whether to file a complaint or withdraw a complaint already filed" (again order no. 106 of 2024, taken up by judgment no. 9 of 2025).

These principles appear pertinent and are supported by the case law of this Court relating to the genesis of the contested provision and its insertion into the system.

7.— Article 570-bis of the Criminal Code was introduced by Article 2, paragraph 1, letter d) of Legislative Decree no. 21 of March 1, 2018, containing "Provisions for the implementation of the principle of delegation of the code reserve in criminal matters according to Article 1, paragraph 85, letter q) of Law no. 103 of June 23, 2017," in implementation of the delegation provided for by Law no. 103 of June 23, 2017 (Amendments to the criminal code, the code of criminal procedure, and the prison system), as part of a systematic revision of the criminal system, inspired by the principle of code reserve: in this context, the contested provision is inserted.

The latter, titled "Violation of family assistance obligations in case of separation or dissolution of marriage," punishes the conduct of the spouse who "evades the obligation of paying any type of allowance due in case of dissolution, cessation of civil effects, or nullity of marriage, or violates economic obligations regarding the separation of spouses and joint custody of children."

The codification reproduces, albeit not literally, the previous criminal rules contained in Article 12-sexies of Law no. 898 of 1970 and in Article 3 of Law no. 54 of 2006, which were simultaneously repealed by Article 7, paragraph 1, letters b) and o) of the same Legislative Decree no. 21 of 2018. In particular, the aforementioned Article 12-sexies sanctioned the non-fulfillment of the obligation to pay the divorce allowance, due under Articles 5 and 6 of the same law, referring, quoad poenam, to Article 570 of the Criminal Code; while the cited Article 3, regarding separation, in turn, provided for the application of Article 12-sexies in case of non-observance of economic obligations provided by the same law charged to parents for the maintenance of children.

Through the introduction of Article 570-bis of the Criminal Code, the delegated legislature ostensibly intended to carry out a mere transposition of special criminal rules into the criminal code, in execution of the delegation aimed at achieving a tendential reconduction of the various criminal cases provided for by special laws into the body of the code. Such normative intervention did not affect the regime of ex officio prosecution of the offenses provided for by the special legislation and subsequently merged into Article 570-bis of the Criminal Code.

On this aspect of the offense under Article 12-sexies of Law no. 898 of 1970, the United Sections have ruled in the past, affirming that the crime of non-payment of the divorce allowance is prosecuted ex officio and not by complaint of the injured party, as the reference contained in that provision to Article 570 of the Criminal Code refers exclusively to the sanctioning treatment provided for the crime of violation of family assistance obligations and not to the relative procedural regime (Court of Cassation, United Criminal Sections, judgment January 31–May 31, 2013, no. 23866).

Following the introduction of Article 570-bis of the Criminal Code, the Court of Cassation clarified that the normative continuity predicable between the new provision and the previous ones excludes any modification of the prosecution regime, accrediting the current relevance of the principle, affirmed by the United Sections in the judgment just mentioned, according to which the offense of non-payment of the divorce allowance is prosecuted ex officio and not by complaint of the injured party (Court of Cassation, Sixth Criminal Section, judgment January 30–February 24, 2020, no. 7277; Criminal Vacation Section, judgment August 2–3, 2018, no. 37766).

Moreover, even in constitutional case law, the correctness of the referring court's hermeneutic premise regarding the ex officio prosecutability of the offense in question has already been confirmed several times (judgments no. 220 of 2015 and no. 325 of 1995; orders no. 423 of 1999 and no. 209 of 1997).

8.— This Court, in the past, has ruled several times precisely on the procedural regime provided for the offense regulated by Article 12-sexies of Law no. 898 of 1970, the content of which, as set out above, has been taken up by the contested provision.

8.1.— In particular, judgment no. 325 of 1995, in consideration of the nature of the intervention requested of this Court and its unsuitability to achieve the objective of equalizing the cases compared as proposed by the referring court, declared the inadmissibility of the question of constitutional legitimacy relating to the procedural regime of the aforementioned Article 12-sexies for contradiction with Article 3 of the Constitution, from the point of view of both unreasonableness and disparity of treatment with respect to Article 570 of the Criminal Code.

Starting from this last challenge, regarding the allowance to be paid to the divorced spouse, on one hand, the cited ruling excluded the detectability of a full homogeneity of the situations subject to comparison, and, above all, on the other hand, noted that their equalization, requested by the referring court, could not be obtained by modifying the regime of prosecution. It added, then, that in the absence of a suitable tertium comparationis, the recourse to the criterion of reasonableness would have been possible "only if the normative discipline, in itself considered, were patently arbitrary or manifestly irrational; an evaluation that does not apply to the choice to consider the offense configured by the denounced rule prosecuted ex officio."

With reference to the position of children, on the other hand, the "common foundation of the services inherent in their maintenance by parents" was indeed valued, "services that can be manifested in different ways, but which are in any case the expression of the same duty, regardless of cohabitation, separation, or divorce of parents." This, however, still did not lead to the acceptance of the question, believing that the recognized "disharmonies in the normative design" deriving from the diversity of criminal protection of the two cases compared, in particular for situations referring to adult children, could only "be overcome by the legislature according to a pondered evaluation of the different interests." The intervention requested of this Court, in fact, limited to the profile of the prosecution of the offense, was not considered "suitable to achieve the objective proposed by the referral order, of making the different disciplines homogeneous and unitarily coherent, because, if implemented, it would ultimately affect only one element that contributes to the denounced imbalance."

Hence, therefore, the inadmissibility of the questions.

These conclusions were subsequently reiterated with orders no. 423 of 1999 and no. 209 of 1997, in relation, respectively, to the allowance in favor of the divorced spouse and the maintenance allowance for children (both orders of manifest inadmissibility).

8.2.— With judgment no. 220 of 2015, this Court ruled again on the failure to provide for prosecution subject to complaint for the offense under Article 12-sexies of Law no. 898 of 1970, regarding the non-payment of the allowance due as a contribution to the maintenance of a minor child.

Addressing the challenges presented by the referring court for violation of Article 3 of the Constitution for unreasonable disparity of treatment of analogous situations, it was stated that the tertia comparationis evoked presented differential elements with respect to the hypothesis regulated by the contested rule such as to prevent their useful comparison, or, in any case, not to allow for the conclusion that the limit to the broad discretion that the legislature enjoys in the subject matter considered had been crossed.

Passing to the examination of the individual cases, homogeneity was excluded with the offense provided for by Article 388, second paragraph, of the Criminal Code, in the part in which it sanctions the malicious non-observance of a court order concerning the custody of minors, as the aforementioned offense is placed to protect "final" interests distinct from those protected by Article 12-sexies of Law no. 898 of 1970. The judgment also noted the debatability of the asserted greater gravity of the conduct of "evasion" of the judicial measure, required by the cited second paragraph of Article 388 of the Criminal Code, with respect to that of "subtraction" from the obligation to pay the allowance indicated by the provision subject to challenge; and finally, it reiterated the irrelevance of the comparison between the statutory penalties of the two offenses to affirm the irrationality of the prosecution regime adopted by the legislature.

Even more marked, with respect to the criminal figure in question, was the heterogeneity of the offense of non-observance of protection orders against family abuse, under Article 6 of Law no. 154 of April 4, 2001 (Measures against violence in family relations)—which borrowed from Article 388 of the Criminal Code both the punitive response and the prosecution regime subject to complaint—which has very different presuppositions and aims from those of the measure that requires the divorced spouse to pay an allowance as a contribution to the maintenance of minor children. The protection order is, in fact, a civil measure, temporally circumscribed, against violence in family relations, which accompanies the criminal precautionary measure of removal from the family home, the presupposition of which, under Article 342-bis of the Civil Code, is represented by "conduct of the spouse or other cohabitant" that is "a cause of serious prejudice to the physical or moral integrity or to the freedom of the other spouse or cohabitant."

A similar discussion was conducted with respect to the crime of violation of family assistance obligations (Article 570 of the Criminal Code), regarding which this Court reiterated, citing judgment no. 325 of 1995, that, even after the intervention of the United Sections (Cass., no. 23866 of 2013), "there remain in any case between the cases in comparison differential elements, such as not to make 'automatic'—on the level of the need to restore the principle of equality—the requested extension of the prosecution regime subject to complaint to the criminal figure provided for by the special law. Differently, in fact, from Article 570, first paragraph, of the Criminal Code—which punishes in a generic way those who evade assistance obligations inherent in parental responsibility (as well as the quality of spouse)—Article 12-sexies of Law no. 898 of 1970 requires the non-observance of a specific judicial measure, which has arranged for the divorced spouse the obligation to pay the allowance." On this point, it was excluded that the fact that "in other cases—such as those regulated by Article 388, second paragraph, of the Criminal Code and Article 6 of Law no. 154 of 2001—the legislature has opted for the prosecutability subject to complaint of crimes that postulate the non-observance of judicial measures equally relating to family relations, since in such cases—as we have seen—the imperativeness of judicial decisions is aimed at safeguarding interests distinct from that protected by the contested norm."

9.— Even if in the precedents examined above this Court has focused its scrutiny on the denounced disparities of treatment of the offense under the frequently cited Article 12-sexies with the specific tertia comparationis evoked, from time to time, by the referring judge, the arguments developed in them, in light of what was said on the relationship between the aforementioned offense and that subject to the questions in question, must be considered transposable to the latter.

And this applies, in particular, to the explicit exclusion (affirmed in judgment no. 325 of 1995) of the manifest unreasonableness of the legislature's choice in the sense of ex officio prosecution and to the consideration that, in the absence of a suitable tertium comparationis, the recourse to the criterion of reasonableness would have been possible only in case of patent arbitrariness or manifest irrationality of the normative discipline, in itself considered; "an evaluation that does not apply to the choice to consider the offense configured by the denounced rule prosecuted ex officio."

10.— Added to this is the fact that, on another more recent occasion, ruling on the procedural regime for the crime of kidnapping committed against a spouse, this Court traced the legislature's choice not to provide, for the aggravated hypothesis of kidnapping, the punishability subject to complaint of the injured party when the fact is committed to the detriment of the spouse or, subordinately, of the spouse no longer cohabiting, "to the need to take into account the particular protection needs of the victim in the context of family relations. Relations in which they are structurally exposed to the risk of suffering pressure from the author of the crime or other family members: both so that they do not report the episodes of violence suffered, and—perhaps above all—so that they retract the accusations at a later time" (judgment no. 9 of 2025).

11.— In light of what has been exposed so far, and in substantial continuity with the case law of this Court, the questions raised are not well-founded.

11.1.— First of all, the crimes under Articles 624 and 625, last paragraph, of the Criminal Code, evoked in support of the unreasonableness of the contested discipline, given their absolute heterogeneity perceptible already only from the point of view of the diversity of protected legal interests—besides not being suitable to act as tertia comparationis, as argued by the referring court itself—fail to bring out a system dystonia such as to rise to a manifest irrationality of the same, at least in the terms, recalled above, reviewable by this Court.

The family context in which the relative conduct manifests itself then assumes a particularly significant character—suitable to exclude the unreasonableness of the legislative option for the ex officio prosecution of the offense in question.

In such a context, in fact, relations in which one is structurally exposed to the risk of suffering pressure from the perpetrator of the offense or other family members (again judgment no. 9 of 2025) can well occur, so that the potential conditions of particular vulnerability of the victim of the offense—beneficiary of the patrimonial obligations ordered by the judicial authority—could well negatively affect the choices of the latter regarding the filing of the complaint or the withdrawal of a complaint already filed.

Nor, in the opposite sense, do considerations regarding the need to favor amicable composition and reconciliation between the parties involved in the crime linked to the family context as well as the potential effect of incentivizing compliance assume a decisive character, at least under the profile of the evaluation in terms of non-manifest unreasonableness of the legislature's choice; considerations that present, rather, an ambivalent nature, being able to lend themselves if anything to supporting both controversial positions.

In this way, in fact, on one hand, there is a risk of underestimating possible specific dynamics of pressure in the family environment, as clarified above; on the other, one can well, reversing the perspective, affirm that precisely the ex officio prosecution—which cannot generally be considered unknown or unknowable by the citizens—can prove to be a more suitable instrument to incentivize the timely fulfillment of economic obligations imposed by the judicial authority.

12.— The lack of foundation of the questions raised in reference to Articles 3 and 27, third paragraph, of the Constitution must, therefore, be declared.

With the clarification, regarding this last parameter, that the reference, valued by the referring court, to the perception as unjust of a sanction in consequence of the absence (or the coming to an end) of the "punitive will of the victim" does not hit the mark, given that it must be considered extraneous to the rehabilitative purpose of the penalty. Nor do observations—at least as developed by the court a quo—regarding a different perception of the sanction by the offender as a consequence of the existence or not of such will exceed the plane of mere meta-legal considerations; also because, to take such reasoning to its extreme consequences, one would have to hypothesize friction with such a parameter whenever the law does not provide for the prosecutability subject to complaint of the injured party.

13.— Finally, this Court, in the present venue, cannot but reiterate, in line with what was already observed in the frequently cited judgment no. 220 of 2015, the fragmentary and disharmonious nature still present in the system of incriminations relating to family relations, whose overcoming, moreover, is left to the legislature.

for these reasons

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

declares the questions of constitutional legitimacy of Article 570-bis of the Criminal Code, raised, in reference to Articles 3 and 27, third paragraph, of the Constitution, by the Ordinary Court of Varese, Criminal Section, sitting as a single judge, with the order indicated in the epigraph, to be not well-founded.

So decided in Rome, at the seat of the Constitutional Court, Palazzo della Consulta, March 23, 2026.

Signed:

Giovanni AMOROSO, President

Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Reporting Judge

Valeria EMMA, Clerk

Filed in the Clerk's Office on June 5, 2026

 

The anonymized version conforms, in the text, to the original