“A new rapid recruitment of new staff is needed to fully cover the 8000-unit workforce envisaged by the Orlando reform. Better salaries, forms of social security and welfare protection. The regime of extension of honorary positions has lasted too long, creating the anomaly of a precariousness that is difficult to reconcile with the principles of national and European law”. This is what the executive of Magistratura Democratica is asking for in a note. The pandemic emergency has brought to light all the structural weaknesses of the judicial organization, including the lack of an adequate compensation and social security system for honorary magistrates.
And this is why the Md executive asks: "The honorary magistracy has been progressively entrusted, starting from the 90s, with tasks of ever greater significance and technical complexity. In this way, it has contributed to consolidating (and "precariousizing") a semi-professional judicial component, which with the full take-off of the Orlando reform - originally planned for August 2021 - will also see its competences further expanded. This is a process, in some ways, difficult to avoid. An increase in the staff of the professional magistracy, aimed at covering all the sectors and functions currently managed by honorary magistrates, would have unsustainable costs and very long implementation times. On the other hand, the availability of a group of honorary magistrates equal to about half of the professional ones has allowed us to progressively reach acceptable times in the first-instance jurisdiction, achieving a significant recovery in efficiency, both in the offices of the justice of the peace and in the courts, where honorary judges have often managed, almost exclusively, a good part of the criminal cases of monocratic competence and a large part of the civil disputes of lesser complexity. For this reason, inside and outside the courts, the honorary magistracy cannot be done without”.
And then he adds: "This does not mean, however, that we should arrive at forms of parallel recruitment, distorting the constitutional system designed by art. 106, based on the discipline of the single national competition for access to the judiciary. To confirm the full compliance of our regulatory structure with the Constitution, the Orlando reform of 2017 has anchored the honorary position to the temporariness of the functions and to its non-exclusive nature. In this way, an attempt has been made to overcome the systematic extension of honorary positions, which has continued for too long a period of time, creating the anomaly of a "precariousness" without protection, difficult to reconcile with the principles of national and European law. In the reform scheme of 2017, there are two other significant profiles that express a shared political direction: the togata management of the offices of the justice of the peace and the training internship of new honorary magistrates, with the provision of a mandatory two-year period at the office for the trial".
And finally: “Magistratura democratica hopes that we can start again as soon as possible from the positive discipline, confirming the temporary and non-exclusive dimension of the activity of honorary magistrates and also providing for the rapid recruitment of new staff (something that has not been seen at all, in the last two years), so as to cover all 8000 positions provided, as organic endowment, by the ministerial decree of 22 February 2018. At the same time, it is necessary to intervene quickly on some critical points of the Orlando reform, starting with the new economic regime, which despite having finally overcome the piecework system has nevertheless provided, once in place, allowances of an almost offensive value, if one considers that they also include the share to be allocated to social security by individuals. Finally, it is necessary to provide forms of protection that are not only social security but also welfare: it is unthinkable, in fact, that professionals called upon to carry out such a delicate task, such as that of administering justice, are without insurance coverage in the event of events that affect their health or ability to work, such as the one we are experiencing".
Article published on May 5, 2020 - 17:48 pm
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