JUDGMENT NO. 128

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, Massimo LUCIANI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
delivered the following

JUDGMENT

in proceedings concerning the constitutionality of Article 89, second paragraph, second period, of Royal Decree No. 1592 of August 31, 1933 (Approval of the consolidated text of the laws on higher education), brought by the Regional Administrative Court for Campania, Second Section, in the proceedings pending between M.R. R. and a State University of Campania, by means of a non-final judgment dated June 27, 2025, registered under no. 203 of the 2025 register of orders and published in the Official Journal of the Republic no. 43, 1st special series, of the year 2025.

Having regard to the appearance of M.R. R., as well as the intervention of the President of the Council of Ministers;

having heard Judge Rapporteur Filippo Patroni Griffi at the public hearing of May 6, 2026;

having heard counsel Benedetta Leone for M.R. R. and State Counsel Federico Basilica for the President of the Council of Ministers;

having deliberated in chambers on May 6, 2026.

Ritenuto in fatto (Findings of Fact)

1.− By a non-final judgment dated June 27, 2025, registered under no. 203 of the 2025 register of orders, the Regional Administrative Court for Campania, Second Section, raised, with reference to Article 3 of the Constitution, in conjunction with Articles 2, 4, and 35 of the Constitution, a question of constitutional legitimacy concerning Article 89, second paragraph, second period, of Royal Decree No. 1592 of August 31, 1933 (Approval of qualitative and consolidated text of the laws on higher education) "in the part where it entails, as a necessary consequence of the application of the penalty [of suspension from office and salary for up to one year] referred to in Article 87, first paragraph, no. 2 […] where it is imposed in relation to conduct that has compromised the honor and dignity of the professor, the ineligibility for the offices of Rector of the University or Director of a university institution for a period of ten years”, "without granting the body [competent to impose the penalty the power] not to apply [the disqualification] or to graduate its duration based on the seriousness of the conduct and its effects”.

1.1.− The administrative judge reports that he is called upon to rule on an appeal brought by a tenured full professor at a state university for the annulment of the disciplinary penalty imposed—pursuant to Articles 87, first paragraph, number 2), and 89, first paragraph, letter d), of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933—consisting of suspension from office and salary for one month, with exemption from academic duties and loss of seniority for the entire duration thereof, as well as a subsequent appeal for additional grounds against the "accessory penalty” of the prohibition to hold directive offices for ten years, imposed pursuant to Article 89, second paragraph, second period, of the same Royal Decree.

The measure had been issued by the University's Board of Directors, upon a proposal from the Disciplinary Board, to sanction conduct by the professor—who served as coordinator and director of a specialization school—deemed "harmful [to her] dignity and honor”: in view of the impending anonymous questionnaire submitted annually to students for the evaluation of educational offerings, the professor had sent a message on the WhatsApp group of the specialization students reading: "Dear… as you know, the questionnaire is ‘secret’… but not [to] me!!! Please be lenient… Thanks everyone”. The message was subsequently published on the Facebook page of a student association.

1.1.1.− According to the regulatory reconstruction of the non-final judgment, among the "disciplinary punishments” that may be imposed on tenured professors, Article 87, first paragraph, number 2), of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933 provides for "suspension from office and salary for up to one year”, which may be imposed, pursuant to Article 89, first paragraph, (as an alternative to the more afflictive penalties of revocation and dismissal), in the case of "a) serious insubordination; b) habitual failure to perform office duties; c) habitual irregularity of conduct; d) acts in general that in any way harm the dignity or honor of the professor”.

Article 89, second paragraph, first period, of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933, in turn provides that the aforementioned penalty of suspension from office and salary also entails "exemption from teaching, academic functions, and related functions, and the loss, for all purposes, of seniority for the entire duration thereof”. The censured second period of the provision adds that a "professor who has incurred the punishment itself may not, for ten calendar years, be appointed Rector of a University or Director of a University Institution”.

1.1.2.− After rejecting all the grounds of the principal challenge, the referring Regional Administrative Court turns to the second claim for annulment supported by the sole grievance of unreasonableness and proportionality of the accessory penalty due to derivative illegitimacy arising from contrast with the Constitution of the norm providing for it: according to the appeal, Article 89, second paragraph, second period, of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933 would violate Article 3 of the Constitution because it provides for the "prohibition of passive electorate” for university directive offices for a fixed decennial measure as a consequence of the suspension penalty, even for non-serious conduct.

Sharing the appellant's perspective, the a quo judge proceeds to raise the question of constitutional legitimacy.

1.2.− Regarding relevance, the originating act assumes, on the one hand, that the dismissal of the complaints regarding the principal penalty renders relevant the doubt of constitutionality of the provision that provides for the accessory penalty.

On the other hand, it posits that the potential declaration of constitutional illegitimacy of Article 89, second paragraph, second period, of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933 with regard to the mandatory nature and non-graduability of the accessory penalty provided therein would entail the annulment of the challenged measure "in the part where it establishes” the ten-year preclusion from conferring the functions of University Rector and Director of a University Institution, with the consequent restoration to the body holding disciplinary power of the assessment concerning the applicability and/or duration of the penalty itself in relation to the seriousness of the act.

1.3.− Regarding non-manifest unfoundedness, the Regional Administrative Court complains that the ex lege decennial disqualification from the offices of rector and director of university institutions as a result of the imposition upon the professor of the penalty of suspension from service for up to one year—regardless of the seriousness of the behavior maintained and the duration of the service suspension provided—would be contrary to the principles of necessary proportionality of the penalty to the act and its consequences and of its congruence with the pursued purpose, also taking into account the compression of the career development of the sanctioned university professor and, therefore, of the individual's personality expressed in the exercise of work activity.

This is true, "at the very least”, where the prohibition of holding positions is the consequence of conduct, such as that attributed to the appellant, of non-significant gravity that "in any case [harms] the dignity or honor of the professor” (Article 89, first paragraph, letter d, of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933).

1.3.1.− In developing the reasoning supporting the challenges, first of all, the referring judge declares himself aware that the contrast with the principle of proportionality of the censured norm was in the past deemed manifestly unfounded by the Court of Cassation (Labor Section, judgment no. 8304 of May 25, 2012) on the premise that such principle was directed solely at principal retributive penalties—whose magnitude depends on the manner of conduct and the intensity of the subjective element—and not at accessory penalties of a preventive nature, which, being designed to prevent the repetition of prejudice to the protected good, can be established by the legislator as consequences of the infliction of the principal penalty with a pre-determined duration, even independently of the magnitude of the former.

Nevertheless, the Regional Administrative Court departs from the aforementioned precedent, deeming identifiable profiles of contrast with Article 3 of the Constitution, in conjunction with Articles 2, 4, and 35 of the Constitution, also in light of the most recent orientations of constitutional jurisprudence which have subjected accessory penalties correlated with administrative penalties, and in particular those of a non-punitive nature, to the test of proportionality and adequacy.

In reviewing constitutional jurisprudence, the a quo judge assumes:

− that the proportionality review on rigid sanctionatory provisions, traditionally referred to as criminal penalties, has been extended, first, to punitive-type administrative penalties (citing judgments no. 223 of 2018, no. 68 of 2017, no. 276 of 2016, no. 104 of 2014, and no. 196 of 2010) and, subsequently, to non-punitive ones and administrative penalties in general (citing judgments no. 40 of 2023 and no. 112 of 2019);

− that it has been affirmed "for the entire sanctionatory matter” that penalties established in a fixed measure would place themselves in potential conflict with the principles of reasonableness and proportionality with respect to the seriousness of the offense, unless the penalty "is found not to be manifestly unreasonable” with respect to the disvalue of the entire range of conduct—characterized by a certain degree of homogeneity—to which the penalty itself is intended to apply (citing judgments no. 51 of 2024, no. 40 of 2023, and no. 197 of 2018);

− that even accessory penalties not having an exclusively retributive nature would be subject to the principle of proportionality, to be declined in such case not only with regard to the relationship between the penalty and the offense, but also in relation to its congruence with the specific further purpose pursued in addition to the retributive one. Furthermore, verification of the non-excessive onerousness of the sanctionatory treatment with respect to constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms would be required.

Regarding this latter category of sanctionatory treatments, the a quo judge extensively recalls this Court's judgment no. 170 of 2015, which ruled as constitutionally illegitimate Article 13, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree No. 109 of February 23, 2006, bearing "Discipline of disciplinary offenses of magistrates, related penalties, and the procedure for their applicability, as well as amendment of the discipline concerning incompatibility, exemption from service, and transfer of office of magistrates, pursuant to Article 1, paragraph 1, letter f), of Law No. 150 of July 25, 2005”. Indeed, this provision was deemed harmful to the principles of proportionality and adequacy where it provided for the accessory penalty, of a not exclusively retributive character, of the mandatory transfer of the magistrate to another location, as a consequence of the disciplinary penalty inflicted upon him for having carried out one of the variegated conducts of violation of the duties of his office which, pursuant to Article 2, paragraph 1, letter a), of Legislative Decree No. 109 of 2006, had "caused unjustified damage or undue advantage to one of the parties”. In that case, the accessory penalty was deemed contrary to Article 3 of the Constitution because it was susceptible to being applied mandatorily despite the absence of a connotation of particular gravity of the contested behaviors, taking into account the broad and variegated range of conduct subsumable under the illicit factual situation, as well as because it was detached from a control of congruence of the measure with the purpose, additional and different from the repressive one of the specific disciplinary offense, pursued by it.

1.3.2.− Applying the aforementioned hermeneutic coordinates to Article 89, second paragraph, second period, of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933, the referring judge considers that the prohibition to assume "top” positions for ten years is excessively limiting of the professional development prospects of the professor and, therefore, of the individual's personality expressed in the exercise of work activity, within the scope of which the Republic "oversees […] professional elevation”.

In the first place, regarding the relationship between the fixed sanctionatory consequence and the disvalue of the sanctioned conduct, the non-final judgment observes that the offenses listed in Article 89, first paragraph, of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933 and punished with the principal penalty of suspension from office and salary for up to one year, provided for by Article 87, first paragraph, number 2), would be of varying gravity and nature and therefore heterogeneous among themselves (ranging from serious or habitual failures of office duties to acts which, while not constituting a serious or habitual violation of said duties, are capable "in any way” of harming the dignity and honor of the professor).

In particular, the illicit factual situation contested against the appellant of "acts in general that in any way harm the dignity or honor of the professor”, according to what is provided by Article 89, first paragraph, letter d), of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933, would be susceptible to including (through the adverb "in any way”) even unintentional conduct, or conduct that, due to the circumstances of the concrete case (for example, because contained in a circumscribed context), can be deemed of minor entity.

Therefore, even for behaviors not characterized by particular offensiveness, or with non-significant damaging effects, the provision of a penalty with an automatic effect and a particularly long predetermined duration would significantly preclude the university professor's career development. The norm would leave no room for the body holding disciplinary power either to "evaluate the proportionality” of the prohibition of directive positions or to temporally graduate it based on the seriousness of the conduct and the damage concretely caused to the goods-interests that the penalty itself intends to protect.

In this regard, the present case would be emblematic because the principal penalty of suspension from service was imposed in the minimum measure of one month, but the preclusion from assuming directive positions would last by law for ten years and determine the loss of the position held.

Furthermore, in more general terms, the afflictiveness of the penalty would be particularly significant if the faculty member at the time of its imposition: 1) has, for age reasons, a remaining service period equal to or less than ten years, because he would consequently be barred from holding prominent positions; 2) already holds a directive position, since he would suffer demotion from the status held (as in the present case, where the appellant held the position of Director of the Specialization School).

In the second place, the originating act assumes the incongruity between the accessory measure and the achieved purpose, additional to the punitive one, identified in the protection both of the proper functioning of administrative activity—susceptible to being harmed by holding "top” bodies by those who have failed in office duties—and of the prestige of the University, which could be prejudiced by being represented by professors who have been disciplined "or whose behaviors have caused harm to their own reputation (the "dignity” and "honor” of the professor)”.

Indeed, the legislative provision would be unreasonable where it failed to consider that the time span necessary for the reintegration of " ‘the professional reliability’ and ‘good name’ of the professor (and by reflection of the University) […] can vary based on the lesser or greater gravity of the conduct, as well as the vulnus inflicted on the protected legal good”.

Finally, due to its characteristics, the provision in question would not pass the proportionality test on the necessity and adequacy of the measure: the mandatory nature and fixity of the accessory penalty would not allow the disciplinary body any assessment on the an and the quantum of the measure in relation to the restoration of the institution's prestige.

On the other hand—concludes the non-final judgment—the graduation of the accessory penalty could not even be carried out through the choice of the principal "punishment”, given that, pursuant to Article 88 of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933, the milder sanctionatory response of censure is reserved for conduct that, among other things, is not such as to harm the professor's dignity and honor. Conversely, in the event of harm to such goods-interests, pursuant to Article 89, first paragraph, letter d), at least suspension must necessarily be imposed.

2.− The appellant professor in the main proceedings entered an appearance, requesting the declaration of constitutional illegitimacy of Article 89, second paragraph, second period, of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933 in the exact terms auspicated by the referring judge.

The faculty member, after recounting the facts, illustrated, shared, and supported the arguments spent by the a quo judge. In particular, she reported the most important passages of the referral act and broad excerpts of the constitutional jurisprudence cited therein.

Furthermore, the party examined in depth the limit of legislative discretion regarding sanctionatory provisions which, like the one under examination, impact the right to passive electorate to hold university offices: the balancing between such inviolable right and the public interest that an office be entrusted to someone possessing the necessary and suitable requirements for the performance of related functions must be conducted by the legislator according to the canon of reasonableness.

In the present case, the accessory penalty of preclusion from directive offices would pass neither the proportionality test regarding the necessity and adequacy of the measure, nor regarding its suitability for the purpose.

3.− The President of the Council of Ministers intervened in the proceedings, represented and defended by the State Attorney General's Office, requesting that the raised question be declared inadmissible or, subordinately, unfounded.

4.− As a preliminary matter, the intervener raised objections regarding the lack of relevance and non-manifest unfoundedness, on multiple counts.

4.1.− The act of intervention premises a reading different from that of the referring judge regarding Article 89, second paragraph, second period, of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933: the provision would not introduce an accessory penalty with respect to the imposed "punishment” of suspension from service, but rather a condition of ineligibility/in-candidatability. Moreover, the provision would not prescribe any forfeiture of the office already held by the sanctioned professor.

According to the State Attorney General's Office, such different qualification would entail, in the first place, the manifest unfoundedness of the question due to the erroneousness of the interpretive presupposition.

In the second place, it would entail the irrelevance of the question due to a lack of jurisdiction of the seised administrative judge: since the referring Regional Administrative Court ruled on all grounds of challenge to the principal penalty, it would have exhausted the scope of its jurisdiction. Indeed, cognizance of the remaining grievance concerning the loss of the eligibility requirement would fall—according to the consolidated jurisprudence of both the administrative judge and the court of legitimacy—to the ordinary judge.

4.2.− Furthermore, the reasoning on non-manifest unfoundedness would be insufficient due to the a quo judge having completely omitted the identification of the tertium comparationis: indeed, the benchmark norm against which the violation of the principle of equality would take shape had not been indicated.

4.3.− Lastly, the President of the Council of Ministers contests the petitum of the referral order because it would invade the sphere of discretion reserved to the legislator.

The TAR of Campania would not be asking for an ablative intervention, but rather an additive and manipulative ruling regarding the graduation of "in-candidatability”, which would find no support in the relative regulatory framework nor correspondence in a constitutionally obliged solution. Consequently, the creation of a dedicated application procedure would be remitted to the Court.

In the absence of criteria predetermined by regulations to guide the holder of sanctionatory power in applying or graduating the accessory penalty, the ruling of constitutional illegitimacy would entail an unreasonable discipline due to the breadth of the edictal limits (from 0 to 10 years), the plausible instrumentalization of the modulation of the penalty in the presence of impending conferrals of rectoral offices or direction of university structures, and the potential conflict of interest of the members of the Disciplinary Board.

5.− On the merits, the State Attorney General's Office contested the merits of the question.

The intervener premises in fact that the conduct contested against the teacher, differently from the assessment made by the TAR, cannot be deemed light at all, given: 1) that suspension for one month would not constitute the minimum applicable measure (which would instead be equal to one day); 2) that the conduct, even if committed without intentional deceit, was integrated with awareness and will and consisted in the violation of the duties of fairness and prudence ordinarily exigent from a university professor; 3) that the professor held a "top” office.

In law, the state defense assumes that, once the disqualification provided by the censured provision is qualified as temporary in-candidatability and not as an accessory penalty, the proportionality of the sanctionatory response is entirely assured by the graduability of the principal penalty.

Moreover, according to the gradual system of penalties prepared by R.D. No. 1592 of 1933, suspension from service, accompanied by the "loss of passive electorate” for ten years, would have lesser afflictiveness compared to more serious penalties (revocation and dismissal referred to in Article 87, first paragraph, numbers 3 to 5) which, rather, determine the termination of the employment relationship with the definitive loss of the status of university professor.

As for the specific determination of the duration of the temporary impossibility to hold directive offices, the President of the Council of Ministers assumes that it was purposely established by the legislator at ten years both to guarantee a congruent period of distancing between the individual and the represented institution, and to ensure exclusion from competition for the sanctioned subject for one or two "electoral round[s]” (considering that for the rector the office lasts six years).

Finally, the state defense posits the unfoundedness of the question raised even in the hypothesis—not shared—of qualifying the censured preclusion as an accessory penalty, assuming its reasonableness and proportionality: the legislator expressed, without discrimination, the judgment of disvalue for all sanctionable conduct in accordance with what is provided by Article 89, first paragraph, of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933 (with penalties more serious than censure), deeming each of them suitable to determine the loss of the passive electorate by the sanctioned subject. Among other things, even for this it provided for graduation, engineering it as temporary in the lesser case (the one sanctioned with suspension from service) or definitive in the more serious cases (those sanctioned with revocation or dismissal).

6.− In view of the public hearing, the party filed a brief in which she replied to the defenses carried out by the State Attorney General's Office, both with reference to the explained exceptions of inadmissibility of the question, and with regard to the arguments on the merits spent for their unfoundedness.

Specifically, the party: 1) contested the reading made in the premise by the State Attorney General's Office of the censured provision; 2) as regards the exception of irrelevance, underlined that no exception of lack of jurisdiction had been raised in the administrative proceedings and that this would, in any case, be indubitable since the controversy falls within the exclusive jurisdiction of the administrative judge relating to controversies concerning the employment relationship of university professors, as employees under a non-privatized regime; 3) as regards the lack of indication of the tertium comparationis, underlined that the raised question concerns the contrast with the principles of proportionality and reasonableness and not with the principle of equality; 4) as regards the petitum, deduced that this Court is not precluded from issuing additive and manipulative judgments; 5) as regards the merits, contested the deemed subsistence of a graduation in the preclusion to offices and the re-evaluation of the facts operated by the intervener.

Considerato in diritto (Conclusions of Law)

7.− The TAR of Campania doubts, with reference to Article 3 of the Constitution, in conjunction with Articles 2, 4, and 35 of the Constitution, the constitutional legitimacy of Article 89, second paragraph, second period, of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933, in the part where it provides that a university professor—who has been inflicted the disciplinary penalty of suspension from office and salary for up to one year, for having committed acts harmful to the dignity or honor of the teacher, in accordance with what is provided by Articles 87, first paragraph, number 2), and 89, first paragraph, letter d), of the same Royal Decree—is mandatorily precluded from the conferrability of the offices of rector of the university or director of a university institution for a period of ten years.

The censured provision reads: "The professor who has incurred the punishment [of suspension from office and salary] may not, for ten calendar years, be appointed Rector of a University or Director of a University Institution”.

7.1.− The referring judge, after rejecting the challenge proposed by a university professor, coordinator and director of a specialization school of a state university, against the disciplinary penalty of suspension from office and salary for one month, is called upon to rule on the claim for annulment of "the accessory penalty”, which "ex lege follows” the former, consisting of the prohibition to hold academic directive offices for the duration of a decade.

The a quo judge posits the contrast with the principle of reasonableness of the provision providing for the mandatory and fixed interdictory penalty, with specific regard to the proportionality of the penalty to the act and its congruence with the pursued purpose, also taking into account the compression of the career development of the sanctioned university professor.

8.− The examination of the preliminary profiles and the merits of the question requires a brief framing of the interdiction from academic directive offices reconnected to the penalty of "suspension from office and salary for up to one year” within the context of the disciplinary system provided for university professors in which such preclusion is placed.

8.1.− Even following the reform of the university system operated by Law No. 240 of December 30, 2010 (Rules on the organization of universities, academic personnel, and recruitment, as well as delegation to the Government to incentivize the quality and efficiency of the university system), the substantive aspects of the disciplinary offense of university professors, and thus the provision of punishable conduct and applicable penalties, are still governed by the consolidated text of laws on higher education referred to in R.D. No. 1592 of 1933.

In particular, this consolidated text identifies the illicit factual situations in Articles 88, first paragraph, and 89, first paragraph, which, according to an order of progressive offensiveness, are: 1) failure in office duties or irregular conduct, which do not constitute serious insubordination and are not such as to harm the dignity and honor of the professor (Article 88, first paragraph); 2) acts, in general, that in any way harm the dignity or honor of the professor (Article 89, first paragraph, letter d); 3) habitual irregularity of conduct (Article 89, first paragraph, letter c); 4) habitual failure to perform office duties (Article 89, first paragraph, letter b); 5) serious insubordination (Article 89, first paragraph, letter a).

In turn, office duties and regular conduct, whose breach is disciplinarily punished, are found in Articles 84 to 86 of the same R.D. No. 1592 of 1933, which mandate compliance with teaching, research, and institutional commitments, and coordination with faculty programs. These provisions find further specification and integration in the various sources prescribing behavioral obligations for university professors and, first and foremost, in the code of ethics that every university must possess pursuant to Article 2, paragraph 4, of Law No. 240 of 2010, as well as, within the limits of compatibility, in the code of conduct for public employees (Presidential Decree No. 62 of April 16, 2013, bearing "Regulation containing code of conduct for public employees, pursuant to Article 54 of Legislative Decree No. 165 of March 30, 2001”) and in the general laws on public employment.

Articles 87 and 88 of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933 establish disciplinary penalties.

The mildest "punishment” is censure, imposed exclusively for the lighter offense of "fail[ure] in office duties or […] irregular conduct, which do not constitute serious insubordination and are not such as to harm the dignity and honor of the professor” (Article 88, first paragraph, of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933). For all other more serious offenses, additional disciplinary penalties identified, according to increasing afflictive graduation, in suspension from office and salary for up to one year, and in the "expulsive” ones of revocation and dismissal without loss of the right to pensions or allowances may be inflicted (Article 87, first paragraph, numbers 2 to 4). On the other hand, dismissal with loss of the right to pensions or allowances is no longer adoptable, which, although mentioned by Article 87, first paragraph, number 5), was tacitly repealed by Article 1 of Law No. 424 of June 8, 1966 (Repeal of norms providing for the loss, reduction, or suspension of pensions charged to the State or another Public Entity).

As regards the measures more afflictive than censure, the sanctionatory system is characterized by the lack of a predetermined correspondence between the type of offense and the specific penalty, the consolidated text having instead chosen to remit to the disciplinary body the application of one or the other depending on the "seriousness of the shortcomings” (Article 87, first paragraph, of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933) and the "cases and circumstances” (Article 89, first paragraph, of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933).

8.2.− The appellant in the main proceedings was applied the intermediate penalty of suspension from office and salary: by express legislative clarification, this entails for the entire duration thereof "the loss of emoluments, exemption from teaching, academic functions and those connected thereto, and the loss, for all purposes, of seniority” (Article 89, second paragraph, first period, of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933).

Furthermore, the censured second period of the same Article 89, second paragraph, of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933 causes the adoption of the suspensive penalty to result in an additional ad hoc incapacity that exceeds the duration of that "freezing” of the employment relationship: the suspended professor is always barred from "being appointed Rector of a University or Director of a University Institution” for "ten calendar years”. This effect is thus characterized by application automaticity and fixity of its duration (ten years), much longer than the penalty to which it is correlated (not exceeding one year). The disciplinary body, therefore, has no discretion either in the decision to apply the interdiction or not, or in graduating its application time.

An analogous reaction is not provided for revocation and dismissal for the obvious reason that they terminate the employment relationship and, therefore, inherently entail the impossibility of holding academic offices.

9.− The resolution of the question raised by the TAR of Campania requires, in particular, focusing on the framing and application by jurisprudence of the prohibition of appointment to academic directive offices.

As regards the qualification of the interdiction, the substantially peaceful jurisprudential orientation considers it an "accessory penalty” that derives automatically by legislative provision from the principal penalty of suspension (see, in ordinary jurisprudence, Cass., no. 8304 of 2012 and in administrative jurisprudence, among others, Council of State, Seventh Section, judgments no. 1691 of February 26, 2025 and no. 8823 of November 5, 2024; Sixth Section, judgment no. 2378 of April 12, 2019). From this, administrative judges infer, procedurally, that specific obligations of notice, investigation, or evaluation do not weigh upon the administration, and effectively, that the potential annulment of the principal punishment entails the falling away of the preclusion to positions.

9.1.− The function of this "additional measure” is deemed essentially of a preventive type, as it is aimed at "avoiding the possibility that the serious conduct—sanctioned in the principal way—may be repeated with further prejudice to the protected good” (again, Cass., no. 8304 of 2012; Council of State, no. 8823 of 2024).

Based on this functional reconstruction, the aforementioned judgments deemed manifestly unfounded the solicited question of constitutional legitimacy of Article 89, second paragraph, second period, of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933 for violation of the principle of proportionality between penalty and act: indeed, they preached its applicability exclusively to principal penalties of a retributive character and not also to those, like the interdiction under examination, accessory with eminently preventive purposes.

A different orientation identifies the ratio of the interdictory penalty in the protection of university offices, insofar as "the [representative] position […] is protected from any possible reflection of previous unseemly conduct of the holder” (Regional Administrative Court for Piedmont, First Section, judgment no. 288 of February 19, 2014). The referral order falls along this same path, highlighting the purpose of the interdiction to preserve the proper functioning of administrative activity as well as the prestige of the University, susceptible to suffering prejudice in the event that the Institution is represented at its top levels by professors who are recipients of disciplinary penalties.

9.2.− Finally, it is appropriate to signal the broad interpretation of the scope of application of the interdiction in question.

Although, in fact, Article 89, second paragraph, second period, of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933 refers solely to appointments as "Rector of a University and Director of a University Institution”, non-conferrability is deemed to operate, by virtue of now constant extensive exegesis, for every function of "direction of complex university structures” and, in particular, for every "representative figure” or "prominent role within the University” (among others, Council of State, Seventh Section, judgment no. 3877 of April 18, 2023 and, again, Cass., no. 8304 of 2012).

Furthermore, the prohibition of positions for the suspended professor—differently from what was affirmed by the intervener—is understood by disciplinary practice and jurisprudence not only as an impediment to the conferral of new positions, but also as a cause of forfeiture from those held at the time of the imposition of the penalty (again, Council of State, no. 3877 of 2023).

10.− Before entering into the merits of the question, the four exceptions of inadmissibility raised by the President of the Council of Ministers must be examined.

10.1.− In the first place, the intervener deems the question inadmissible because the a quo judge would have proceeded from an erroneous interpretive premise, qualifying the interdiction in question as an accessory penalty rather than as a cause of in-candidatability or ineligibility. From this the manifest unfoundedness of the grievance would derive.

The objection is not well-founded.

The qualification of the preclusion to academic directive offices operated by the a quo judge, being compliant with the almost univocal orientation of administrative and ordinary jurisprudence on the matter, is far from overtly erroneous and, therefore, does not vitiate the admissibility of the question (among others, judgment no. 85 of 2023; orders no. 229 of 2020 and no. 136 of 2016).

Rather, what was objected concerns the applicability or not of the principles of reasonableness and proportionality to the measure provided by the legislator and therefore pertains to the merits of the challenge.

10.2.− In the second place, still on the premise of requalifying the interdictory measure as a cause of in-candidatability/ineligibility, the State Attorney General's Office objects to the irrelevance of the question due to lack of jurisdiction of the seised judge.

This objection is also unfounded.

According to constant constitutional jurisprudence, the subsistence of jurisdiction constitutes a presupposition for the legitimate initiation of the main process, the evaluation of which is remitted to the a quo judge, with respect to which this Court's verification is only external and instrumental to checking the relevance of the question (ex plurimis, judgments no. 101 and no. 16 of 2023, no. 44 of 2020, and no. 52 of 2018). It follows that the lack of jurisdiction of the referring judge determines the inadmissibility of the question due to lack of relevance only when it is macroscopic and, therefore, detectable ictu oculi (among many, judgments no. 156 and no. 101 of 2023, no. 79 of 2022, no. 65 of 2021, and no. 267 of 2020).

In the present case, in the absence of exceptions by the parties, the administrative judge implicitly deemed his own jurisdiction to subsist, in terms moreover coherent with prevailing ordinary and administrative jurisprudence.

Indeed, the preclusion for teachers from academic directive positions is, in any case, an aspect concerning the "employment relationship of university professors and researchers”, for which the legislator maintained the public law regime, correspondingly attributing exclusive jurisdiction to the administrative judge by virtue of the combination of Articles 3, paragraph 2, 63, paragraph 4, of Legislative Decree No. 165 of March 30, 2001 (General rules on the organization of work employed by public administrations) and Article 133, paragraph 1, letter i), of Annex 1 (Code of Administrative Process) to Legislative Decree No. 104 of July 2, 2010 (Implementation of Article 44 of Law No. 69 of June 18, 2009, bearing delegation to the government for the reorganization of the administrative process).

This holds true both if the interdictory effect is traced back to a disciplinary penalty and if it is deemed an ex lege limitation to the right of passive electorate to academic offices, inasmuch as, even in this second case, it is an aspect of the legal status of the university professor (among others, Court of Cassation, United Civil Sections, order no. 6635 of March 30, 2005; Council of State, Sixth Section, judgment no. 5284 of November 4, 2013; TAR Lazio, Third Section, judgment no. 29 of January 2, 2014; TAR Sicily, detached section of Catania, First Section, judgment no. 526 of March 2, 2020).

10.3.− With a third objection, the intervener's defense objected to the lack of reasoning on non-manifest unfoundedness due to failure to indicate the tertium comparationis.

This objection is also unfounded.

The referring judge complains of the contrast of the norm providing for the non-conferrability of academic directive positions with Article 3 of the Constitution not in terms of violation of the principle of equality with respect to the sanctionatory measure chosen by the legislator for other factual situations, but in terms of violation of the principle of intrinsic reasonableness. Such a challenge, as is known, is detached from a benchmark regulation and, correspondingly, the relative judgment is disjoined from reference to a tertium comparationis (judgments no. 54 of 2026, no. 95 of 2024, no. 86 of 2017 and, with specific regard to sanctionatory provisions, judgments no. 136 of 2020, no. 284, and no. 112 of 2019).

10.4.− Finally, the President of the Council of Ministers objected that the ruling requested by the a quo judge would invade the discretionary sphere reserved to the legislator.

This objection also misses the mark.

The referring judge, indeed, does not ask for an additive ruling aimed at filling a protection gap or introducing elements of novelty into the sanctionatory apparatus, but doubts the reasonableness of the legislative choice to provide for a fixed and non-graduable interdictory penalty with respect to a "broad and variegated range of conduct” to which it is applicable.

If it is indeed true that choices relating to the an and the quantum of administrative penalties fall within legislative discretion, this does not preclude this Court's intervention where the sanctionatory choices adopted by the legislator prove to be manifestly arbitrary or unreasonable (judgments no. 185 of 2021, no. 212, and no. 115 of 2019).

11.− Having stated this, on the merits the question is unfounded.

This Court shares the interpretive premise from which the referring judge moves, but holds that the posited violation of Article 3 of the Constitution does not subsist.

Certainly, as affirmed by substantially univocal jurisprudence, the prohibition established by the censured provision of entrusting university directive positions to the suspended teacher constitutes an accessory penalty, which adds ex lege to the suspension imposed by the disciplinary body, and not a cause of in-candidatability/ineligibility, as argued by the state defense.

This is confirmed by the systematic placement of the provision providing for it (placed in the same paragraph that defines the effects of the principal penalty to which it is reconnected) and by the dual purpose of the measure, which, on the one hand, increases the afflictiveness of the suspensive measure (think of the losses of any office allowances), thereby sharing its dissuasive purpose, and, on the other hand, guarantees specific protection of the prestige and proper functioning of the university.

From such qualification derives the need to subject the administrative sanctionatory norm to the review of reasonableness and proportionality.

Indeed, as still correctly posited by the a quo judge, the precedents of the Court of Cassation and the Council of State cannot be shared (again, Cass., no. 8304 of 2012; Council of State, no. 8823 of 2024) where they excluded the application of the proportionality criterion to the accessory penalty under examination solely because of its preventive and non-retributive character. Rather, according to this Court's constant jurisprudence, this latter type of sanctionatory treatment must also respond to the canon of reasonableness and proportionality, like, moreover, the "generality of administrative penalties” (judgments no. 46 of 2023, no. 266 and no. 246 of 2022, no. 146 of 2021, no. 212, and no. 112 of 2019).

In particular, with reference to rigid administrative sanctionatory provisions, which—like the one under examination—equally strike, and therefore equate, facts that are to some extent different, this Court has repeatedly affirmed "the need to verify that the penalty is not manifestly disproportionate also in relation to less serious conduct”: in other words, a relationship of congruence between the penalty and the seriousness of the sanctioned offense must not manifestly fail. "This stems […] from the duty to ensure the implementation of the principle of proportionality, which, in this area, draws its foundation from Article 3 of the Constitution in conjunction with the constitutional norms protecting the rights affected from time to time by the penalty (judgments no. 112 and no. 88 of 2019)” (most recently, judgments no. 84 of 2026 and no. 40 of 2023).

And this has been affirmed both with regard to administrative penalties of a principal type (judgments no. 95 of 2022, no. 185 of 2021, and no. 112 of 2019), and in relation to penalties of an accessory type (judgments no. 52 of 2024, no. 266 of 2022, and no. 170 of 2015), such as that provided by the censured norm.

Well then, in application of such evaluation metric, various rulings have declared constitutionally illegitimate norms establishing mandatory and fixed accessory penalties because they were provided in response to offenses referable to a multiplicity of concrete cases characterized by different disvalue (judgments no. 52 of 2024, no. 246 of 2022, and no. 170 of 2015).

Conversely, other judgments have deemed immune from the vice of unreasonableness certain norms contemplating rigid additional sanctionatory reactions because they concerned particularly serious conduct or generators of relevant risks correlated with the activity disciplined by the law providing for them (judgments no. 101 of 2025, no. 194 of 2023, no. 266 of 2022, and no. 435 of 1997; orders no. 125 of 2008 and no. 172 of 2003). In such cases, in fact, the sanctioned conduct proved to be "comparable [and not] distinguished by heterogeneous disvalue” (judgment no. 101 of 2025).

12.− The application of these hermeneutic coordinates to the censured norm leads to excluding that it is manifestly unreasonable or disproportionate: indeed, neither the disproportion of the accessory penalty with respect to the act, nor its incongruence with the pursued purpose, nor even the excessive compression of the teacher's career is detected.

The following considerations lead to this conclusion.

R.D. No. 1592 of 1933 divides the various conduct of university professors of disciplinary relevance into two categories distinguished by degree of disvalue.

On the one hand, Article 88, first paragraph, of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933 reserves mere blame for facts of lesser relevance because consisting of episodic failures that do not degenerate either into serious insubordination or into injury to the dignity or honor of the individual teacher.

On the other hand, the consolidated text punishes more severely conduct of greater offensiveness because habitual (in failing office duties or in irregularity of conduct) or because, even if instantaneous, they constitute acts of "deplorable indiscipline” or prejudice to the decorum and prestige of the teacher: to these the legislator reacts not only with a "punishment” that impacts the employment relationship of the individual teacher (temporarily with suspension or definitively with revocation and dismissal pursuant to the combination of Articles 87, first paragraph, numbers 2 to 4, and 89, first paragraph, of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933), but also—if the committed offense is judged by the disciplinary body not to be so serious as to justify expulsion from the "university community”—with a protective intervention of such community through the contested prohibition of carrying out directive functions of the institution (Article 89, second paragraph, second period, of R.D. No. 1592 of 1933).

As regards the consistent duration of the interdiction, the ten-year period—as correctly observed by the State Attorney General's Office—is engineered in such a way as to preclude appointments, whatever they may be, for at least two successive mandates following the suspension, taking into account that their duration differs depending on the office (six years for the rector, pursuant to Article 2, paragraph 1, letter d, of Law No. 240 of 2010, and, usually, according to the statutory provisions of individual universities, three years for the department director and for the director of the specialization school, and so on).

Having thus clarified the ratio of the interdictory measure, its duration prescinds from the specificity of the concrete illicit factual situation (whose evaluation is remitted to the disciplinary body in the choice of the principal penalty and in the determination of its duration), to be instead calibrated on the primary purpose of preventing the suspended teacher from holding representative and directive positions for a time sufficient to eliminate any risk of injury to the proper functioning and prestige of the university.

In this perspective, the legislative choice to group together, for the purpose of applying the mandatory and fixed interdictory measure, the various illicit conduct—including that harmful to the teacher's dignity and honor—that allow suspension, is not reprehensible: indeed, entrusting a prominent position to a professor who has been disciplined by suspension integrates an intrinsically serious prejudice for the prestige and activity of the university.

Furthermore, the correlation of the duration of the prohibition to that of university offices—and not, as argued by the originating act, to the time necessary to restore the professional reliability of the teacher depending on the illicit factual situation put in place—is not incongruous with the specific purpose of protecting university institutions also in light of the primary role they hold. These, in fact, "are the institutions institutionally deputed to the transmission of knowledge ‘in the various branches of learning’ (judgment no. 7 of 1967) and to the formation of the person and the citizen” (judgment no. 42 of 2017).

Correspondingly, the constitutionally protected research and teaching activities entrusted to them must be carried out, among other things, according to the principle of responsibility (Article 1, paragraph 2, of Law No. 240 of 2010) and to this end the codes of ethics, which universities are obliged to possess, provide for the teacher's acceptance of specific "duties and responsibilities towards the institution of belonging” (Article 2, paragraph 4, of Law No. 240 of 2010).

Finally, in the comparison between the competing interests, the prevalence that the prohibition under examination assigns to the university's interest in entrusting directive positions to "blameless” teachers over the sacrifice of the individual teacher's position is not unreasonable.

Such sacrifice is to be deemed of non-excessive scope and, above all, does not involve the fundamental rights of the worker: the accessory penalty under examination, in fact, does not limit the active subjective situations of the employment relationship (rather struck for the limited period of no more than one year by the principal penalty of suspension) and does not prejudice the development of teaching and research activity nor career progression in the academic sense strictly speaking. Rather, what the measure entails is only the marginal impediment to holding directive positions in consideration, precisely, of the prevailing interest of the university institution.

on those grounds

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

declares unfounded the question of constitutional legitimacy of Article 89, second paragraph, second period, of Royal Decree No. 1592 of August 31, 1933 (Approval of the consolidated text of laws on higher education), raised, with reference to Article 3, in conjunction with Articles 2, 4, and 35, of the Constitution, by the Regional Administrative Court for Campania, Second Section, by means of the non-final judgment indicated in the headnote.

So decided in Rome, at the seat of the Constitutional Court, Palazzo della Consulta, on May 6, 2026.

Signed:

Giovanni AMOROSO, President

Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Rapporteur

Igor DI BERNARDINI, Registrar

Filed in the Registry on July 16, 2026

 

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