ORDER NO. 107
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
ORDER
in the proceedings for conflict of attribution between State powers arising from the resolution of the Senate of the Republic of May 21, 2025, initiated by the Preliminary Hearing Judge of the Ordinary Court of Rome with a petition filed in the registry on December 15, 2025, and registered under no. 9 of the 2025 register of conflicts between State powers, admissibility phase, the hearing for which was scheduled for the in-chambers session of May 18, 2026.
Having heard the Reporting Judge Stefano Petitti in the in-chambers session of May 20, 2026;
Having deliberated in the in-chambers session of May 20, 2026.
Considering that, by petition filed on December 15, 2025 (reg. confl. pot. no. 9 of 2025), the Preliminary Hearing Judge of the Ordinary Court of Rome initiated a conflict of attribution between State powers against the Senate of the Republic, requesting a declaration that the latter lacks the authority to deny, by resolution of May 21, 2025, the authorization to use, against Senator of the Republic Armando Siri, intercepted telephone conversations obtained in the context of criminal proceedings no. 12460 of 2017 R.G.N.R. D.D.A. by the Public Prosecutor's Office at the Ordinary Court of Palermo, which were subsequently incorporated into criminal proceedings no. 40767 of 2018 R.G.N.R. and no. 33315 of 2021 R.G.gip (formerly no. 9200 of 2019 R.G.gip) pending before the same judge, arguing that the "requirement of fortuity and occasionality is absent with regard to the telephone calls of May 17, 2018 prog. 2618, July 17, 2018 prog. 5760, August 4, 2018 prog. 5997 and August 6, 2018 progressives 6043, 6044 and 6090";
that the petitioner reviews the procedural history already brought to the attention of this Court in the conflict of attribution between powers initiated by the same office (reg. confl. pot. no. 3 of 2023), which concluded with judgment no. 117 of 2024;
that, in particular, the petitioner reports that Armando Siri is charged, in complicity with other individuals, with the crime of corruption under Articles 318 and 321 of the Criminal Code, on the grounds that, in his capacity as a Senator of the Republic and Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport during the XVIII Legislature, he allegedly subjugated his duties to private interests through multiple acts related to the inclusion in regulatory and legislative measures of provisions providing incentives for so-called "mini-wind" energy, the adoption of regulatory measures for the financing of an airport completion project, and the removal of a contracting authority's project manager, in exchange for the undue promise and/or receipt of sums of money;
that on September 25, 2018, the then-Senator Armando Siri was entered into the register of suspects following the transmission of records by the Public Prosecutor's Office at the Court of Palermo acquired during investigations into the laundering of financial resources of mafia origin, from which there appeared, starting from May 2018, some sporadic contacts between the aforementioned and entrepreneur P.F. A., in particular an environmental interception of September 10, 2018, in which the latter reported to others that he had to reward "the Vice Minister" with a sum of money for the insertion of an amendment into the law converting the "Mille Proroghe" decree-law;
that the petitioner reports having formulated, by order of June 23, 2021, a request to the Senate of the Republic, pursuant to Article 6, paragraph 2, of Law no. 140 of June 20, 2003 (Provisions for the implementation of Article 68 of the Constitution and concerning criminal proceedings against high State officials), for authorization to use only the conversations transmitted by the Public Prosecutor's Office at the Court of Palermo that occurred prior to his registration in the register of suspects;
that the Senate, with its resolution of March 9, 2022, denied authorization "due to the uncertain and implausible configuration of the requirement of necessity regarding the interceptions of May 15, 2018, prog. 2521 and prog. 2523," as well as "due to the lack of the requirement of fortuity and occasionality in relation to the telephone calls of May 17, 2018, prog. 2618, July 17, 2018, prog. 5760, August 4, 2018 prog. 5997 and August 6, 2018, prog. 6043, 6044 and 6090";
that against the Senate's resolution, the same petitioner initiated a conflict of attribution with an order-petition of May 11, 2022, the content of which is reiterated in full in the introductory document of these proceedings, in which the "necessity" of using the indicated interceptions was argued, as they were relevant for the assessment of the facts at issue, since "from them, contacts emerge between the entrepreneur and the parliamentarian aimed at the presentation of amendments to the regulatory measures currently under discussion in Parliament and concerning the economic sector of interest to the accused A.; the same, therefore, appear abstractly representative of the spatio-temporal context in which Senator and Undersecretary Armando Siri would have operated following the delivery or promise of money in the illicit ways and purposes proposed by the public prosecution";
that the petitioner observes that, with judgment no. 117 of 2024, this Court annulled the Senate's resolution and indicated that a new assessment was necessary solely for communications intercepted after May 15, 2018;
that the Preliminary Hearing Judge of the Court of Rome reports having renewed, by order of February 21, 2025, again pursuant to Article 6, paragraph 2, of Law no. 140 of 2003, the request for authorization to use all intercepted communications and conversations already subject to the first request;
that the Senate of the Republic, with a resolution adopted in the session of May 21, 2025, approving the report of the Junta for Elections and Parliamentary Immunity (doc. IV, no. 5-A), deemed it no longer had competence regarding the two interceptions of May 15, 2018, as they were subject to "annulment without remand" by this Court, and again rejected the request pursuant to Article 68, third paragraph, of the Constitution in relation to the telephone calls of May 17, 2018, July 17, 2018, August 4, 2018, and August 6, 2018;
that the petitioner believes that the issue concerning the possibility of using the interceptions in relation to the constitutional guarantees of the parliamentarian is logically preliminary to their procedural inadmissibility pursuant to Article 270 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which was also raised by the defense of the accused;
that the petitioner, therefore, draws a comparison between the argumentative framework of the Senate's resolution of May 21, 2025, and this Court's judgment no. 117 of 2024, which recognized the occasional nature of the entry into Senator Siri's sphere of surveillance and identified a shift in the direction of the investigation starting from the interception of September 10, 2018;
that, according to the petitioner, in the face of the evaluative perimeter outlined by this Court, the Senate, in the absence of new elements, replaced the concept of "fumus mutationis," already evoked in the previous resolution of March 9, 2022, with a reference to the willful attitude of the judicial authority, which could not have failed to anticipate that the intercepted conversations might foreshadow a corrupt agreement; such an assessment, however, "does not engage in concrete terms with the precise indications provided by judgment no. 117/2024," because it identifies the revealing elements of the shift in the direction of the investigation in circumstances "that the aforementioned judgment has already excluded can have such a meaning";
that, in the petitioner's opinion, the resolution of the Senate of the Republic of May 21, 2025, again denying authorization for the use of interceptions subsequent to May 15, 2018, due to a lack of the requirement of fortuity and occasionality, would exceed the limits of the oversight of the Chamber to which the member belongs, as identified by this Court's judgment no. 117 of 2024, with the consequent illegitimate interference in the judicial process;
that, according to the petitioner, the decision to initiate a conflict of attribution cannot be invalidated by the violation of the reasonable duration of the trial and the risk of an "institutional short-circuit," as argued by the defense of the accused, since only the forum of the constitutional legitimacy judgment would be suitable to establish how to implement the canon of loyal cooperation referred to in judgment no. 117 of 2024, "taking into account all the constitutional values at stake."
Considering that, with the petition indicated in the heading (reg. confl. pot. no. 9 of 2025), the Preliminary Hearing Judge of the Court of Rome has promoted a conflict of attribution between State powers against the Senate of the Republic, requesting a declaration that the latter lacks the authority to deny, by resolution of May 21, 2025, the authorization to use, against Senator of the Republic Armando Siri, pursuant to Article 68, third paragraph, of the Constitution and Article 6, paragraph 2, of Law no. 140 of 2003, the telephone conversations intercepted in the context of criminal proceedings no. 12460 of 2017 R.G.N.R. D.D.A. by the Public Prosecutor's Office at the Court of Palermo (May 17, 2018, prog. 2618; July 17, 2018, prog. 5760; August 4, 2018, prog. 5997; August 6, 2018, progressives 6043, 6044 and 6090) and incorporated into the criminal proceedings pending before the same petitioner;
that, at this stage of the proceedings, this Court is called to deliberate, in chambers and without an adversarial hearing, on the existence of the subjective and objective requirements prescribed by Article 37, first paragraph, of Law no. 87 of March 11, 1953 (Rules on the constitution and functioning of the Constitutional Court), i.e., to decide whether the conflict arises between bodies competent to definitively declare the will of the power to which they belong and for the delimitation of the sphere of attributions delineated among the various powers by constitutional norms, leaving any further issue, including regarding admissibility, open;
that, regarding the subjective requirement, there is no doubt as to the status as a State power of the Preliminary Hearing Judge of the Court of Rome, the current petitioner, as a judicial body placed in a constitutionally guaranteed position of independence, competent to definitively declare, for the proceedings in which he is invested, the will of the power to which he belongs (most recently, orders no. 168 and no. 133 of 2025);
that the Senate of the Republic is likewise entitled to be a party to the conflict of attribution, being competent to definitively declare the will of the power it embodies, in relation to the applicability of the prerogative referred to in Article 68, third paragraph, of the Constitution (again, orders no. 168 and no. 133 of 2025);
that, regarding the objective profile, the subject matter of the conflict exists, with the Preliminary Hearing Judge of the Court of Rome complaining of the impairment of the exercise of the judicial function deriving from the illegitimate exercise by the Senate of the Republic, due to the lack of the relevant prerequisites, of the power granted to it by Article 68, third paragraph, of the Constitution, in particular in relation to the alleged non-occasional nature of the interceptions, in place of the assessment regarding their evidentiary necessity pursuant to Article 6, paragraph 2, of Law no. 140 of 2003 (orders no. 133 of 2025 and no. 191 of 2023);
that, therefore, the subjective and objective requirements of a conflict the resolution of which falls within the competence of this Court are met.
for these reasons
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
1) declares admissible, pursuant to Article 37 of Law no. 87 of March 11, 1953 (Rules on the constitution and functioning of the Constitutional Court), the petition for conflict of attribution between State powers indicated in the heading, initiated by the Preliminary Hearing Judge of the Ordinary Court of Rome against the Senate of the Republic;
2) orders:
a) that the registry of this Court provide immediate notice of this order to the Preliminary Hearing Judge of the Ordinary Court of Rome;
b) that the petition and this order be served, by the petitioner, to the Senate of the Republic, within thirty days of the notification referred to in point a), to be subsequently filed, with proof of service, in the registry of this Court within the thirty-day period provided for by Article 26, paragraph 3, of the Supplementary Rules for proceedings before the Constitutional Court.
So decided in Rome, at the seat of the Constitutional Court, Palazzo della Consulta, on May 20, 2026.
Signed:
Giovanni AMOROSO, President
Stefano PETITTI, Reporting Judge
Roberto MILANA, Director of the Registry
Filed in the Registry on June 16, 2026
The anonymized version conforms, in its text, to the original.