Italy’s budget bill proposes new rules for calculating salary increases for magistrates, state attorneys and state prosecutors, following court rulings that rejected previous methods. The changes are set out in Article 67 and are intended to apply from 2027.
Under the first adjustment, increases calculated using data from the National Institute of Statistics would be based on a weighted average reflecting the number of employees in each category. This would replace the system in which every category carried the same weight.
The provision would also exclude arrears from the calculation. These are payments linked to delayed contract renewals, and their exclusion is intended to prevent the same increases from being counted twice.
The technical report says the amendments aim to avoid misleading estimates of the actual average per-capita increase and to keep salary growth within public-spending limits. The new rules would take effect when the law is published in the Official Gazette and would not alter past payments.
The budget law nevertheless allocates almost €1 billion to cover past salary adjustments following rulings by the Regional Administrative Court and the Council of State that annulled the previous calculation criteria.
The rules are expected to be implemented through decrees. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has announced that she does not intend to sign them, leaving the matter to the Council of State.
Giuseppe Tango, president of the National Association of Magistrates, said the organisation would assess the substance of the provision after examining it in detail. He added that lawmakers have authority to regulate the issue, but must protect magistrates’ remuneration as a condition for judicial independence. Tango also said that any intervention on magistrates’ pay must form part of measures of general application, citing principles reaffirmed by the Court of Justice of the European Union and Italy’s Constitutional Court.
Sources: ANSA Economia.