Italian Civil Justice Reform 2009

Abstract:     
The Italian Civil Justice Reform 2009 (Law no. 69 of 18,h June, 2009 and, based on this law, Legislative Decree no. 28 of 4th March) 2010) has amended several provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure (CCP), but it has left untouched the root causes of inefficiency of the Italian civil justice system.The causes of the unreasonable length of civil proceedings in Italy are many. There are too few judges in relation to the number of disputes to resolve. Many judicial districts are too small and should be merged. The judges are not assisted by law clerks in the preparation of their decisions. Judges often do not even have their own room to work. The presidents of the courts are appointed by the Supreme Council of the Judiciary (Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura) which often takes no account of their managerial skills. The number of court clerks is insufficient to cover the needs. Finally, e-justice still remains very marginal. None of these problems has been addressed by the 2009 reform. There is a need for political will, and human and material resources, which are not there. Therefore, we are satisfied with the modification of only the written words in the law's text. In this paper I do not examine all the innovations of the 2009 reform, but only the most important ones.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 16

Keywords: Civil Justice, Italy

JEL Classification: K41

Accepted Paper Series