On October 4, 2021, a law was published in the official journal, with which the Italian Parliament delegates the Government to introduce important changes to the criminal proceedings.

This reform is inspired by some programmatic lines, long awaited by the market, which aim at solving some unfortunate well known issues, also at international level, of the Italian criminal trial: namely, firstly, its extreme and endemic slowness, which sometimes leads the Italian criminal proceedings to be perceived as a machine that "runs in circles", in which in the end both the expectations of the offended parties and those of the defendants are disappointed; secondly, its now unacceptable delay in the use of new technologies, also compared to the Italian civil proceedings, which are nowadays indispensable tools for making the administration of justice more efficient.

Therefore, in this scenario, the reform operates along three main lines:

1. Reducing the duration of trials by at least 25% on average. Moreover, this aim is indispensable for accessing the PNRR funds and for granting EU funds in general. There are many suggestions to the Government in this respect. The main ones are: a) introduce control mechanisms against the inaction of the Public Prosecutor, in order to avoid that the files basically remain stagnant for years in the investigation phase; b) reduce the cases in which before the trial, a "preliminary hearing" is scheduled, which often results in a superfluous stage between the investigation and the trial; c) impose on the trial judge a detailed scheduling of the hearings; d) set maximum deadlines for holding appeals and Supreme Court hearings, with possible exceptions only for the most serious offences, and provide that once the deadlines have been exceeded, the offence becomes statute-barred; e) introduce a trial office, i.e. introduce a team to support the judge and help him/her to speed up and make more efficient the holding of trials.

2. Introducing deflationary mechanisms aimed at concretely reducing the number of criminal proceedings that reach the trial stage, and to this end encourage the settlement of proceedings by alternative means.

In this regard, the Italian Parliament asks the Government: a) to limit the criminal action of the Public Prosecutor to cases in which the prosecution considers that there is a reasonable expectation of conviction, and not when - as happens today - the acquired evidence is simply suitable to support the accusation at trial; b) to encourage the use of the plea bargaining procedure, allowing the possibility of negotiating with the Public Prosecutor also the sums to be confiscated; c) to encourage the use of the so-called fast-track proceedings.

3. Introducing a full-scale digitisation of the criminal proceedings, with a three-year plan to achieve the goal.

In this connection, the Italian Government shall in particular: a) provide for digital methods for the service, communication and filing of documents; b) provide for the audio/video recording of the statements made by witnesses during the investigation phase; c) provide for the possibility, with the parties' consent, that some actions and the hearings themselves may take place remotely.

Last, but not least, it should be pointed out that Parliament is asking the Government to expressly provide that the mere fact that a person is entered in the register of suspects cannot entail any civil or administrative consequences. This is a very interesting aspect, because in Italy, unfortunately, we have historically witnessed the exploitation, for the most varied purposes, of the mere fact that a person is under investigation in the context of criminal proceedings.

Of course, we will have to wait for the Government's decisions to obtain more details on the implementation of this challenging reform, but we believe that the direction taken is the right one, because greater efficiency in the criminal justice system means greater fairness, greater transparency and greater attractiveness of our Country for foreign investors, who should be able to rely on a faster, more digital and innovative judicial system.

We will keep you updated on the next steps of this reform.

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