Italian Justice under the Urgency of the PNRR.The Situation of Citizenship Judicial Proceedings.

It is currently estimated that more than 70,000 citizenship-related judicial proceedings are pending throughout Italy, a figure that clearly reveals a deep-rooted and long-standing structural problem.

The most striking aspect is the extraordinary concentration of cases in a limited number of courts. The Court of Venice alone accounts for approximately 30,000 proceedings, while the Court of Brescia handles around 6,000. Taken together, these two courts represent nearly half of all citizenship cases nationwide. Other major courts—such as Catanzaro, Rome, Bologna, Florence, Naples, Salerno, Palermo, and Bari—follow, but none reach comparable figures.

The Venice Anomaly and the Legislator’s Error

The situation of the Court of Venice is widely regarded as a true anomaly. The cause does not lie in its internal functioning, but rather in a poorly designed reform of territorial jurisdiction, which failed to foresee that a single court could become overwhelmed by such a massive volume of cases. The result has been an excessive concentration that today severely hampers efficient case management.

By contrast, in most other Italian courts the situation remains relatively manageable. For example, the Court of Brescia expects to conclude all pending cases within less than one year, thanks to a more balanced allocation of proceedings and the reinforcement provided by the so-called giudici applicati, discussed further below. In at least 25 other courts, no comparable emergency situation has been recorded.

The Real Causes of the Increase in Litigation

The exponential growth in citizenship proceedings is far from accidental. The primary responsibility lies with the inertia and obstructionism of Italian consulates abroad, which for years have accumulated delays, endless waiting lists, and a systematic lack of administrative responses.

Applicants—descendants of Italian nationals—are not seeking privileges, but merely judicial protection of subjective rights violated by the public administration itself, namely the recognition of citizenship that the State has negligently failed to grant. Had consular procedures functioned properly ten or twenty years ago, a large portion of these judicial proceedings would never have arisen. The emblematic example is the so-called “lawsuit against the infinite wait at the consulate”, which is the direct consequence of a structural administrative dysfunction.

The PNRR and the Obligation to Accelerate Justice

Pressure to accelerate judicial proceedings has intensified with the PNRR – National Recovery and Resilience Plan, adopted during the pandemic as part of a broader European Union program. The plan allocates billions of euros to Italy with the aim of relaunching the economy, modernizing the State, and above all digitizing public administration.

In the field of justice, the PNRR sets very specific targets:

• A 40% reduction in the duration of civil proceedings and a 25% reduction in criminal proceedings, using 2019 as the baseline;
• The elimination of 90% of judicial backlogs relating to cases initiated between 2017 and 2022 by 30 June 2026.

Access to European funds is directly contingent upon achieving these objectives.

Extraordinary Measures and “Applied Judges”

To meet these requirements, the Italian Government enacted an extraordinary decree-law on 4 August 2025. The measure provides for the involvement of up to 500 volunteer magistrates, known as giudici applicati, who support the most congested courts through remote judicial activity.

Each judge commits to resolving at least 50 additional cases within nine months, in exchange for a financial incentive of approximately €10,000 net, which may be doubled upon completion of a second workload block. This exceptional system—described by some as a form of “piecework justice”—is nonetheless deemed necessary to meet the PNRR deadlines.

In courts such as Brescia, Ancona, Salerno, Naples, and L’Aquila, the measure is already producing tangible results in citizenship proceedings. In Venice, however, the impact remains limited: roughly 200 citizenship cases reassigned to applied judges represent only a drop in the ocean compared to the more than 30,000 cases still pending.

The Reality of Citizenship Litigation: Faster, Yet More Complex

Although proceedings are being accelerated—thanks in part to tools such as Article 127-ter of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure, introduced by the Cartabia Reform, which allows hearings to be replaced by written submissions—the reality is that citizenship cases have become significantly more complex.

Previously concentrated within a single court, they now involve up to 26 different courts, with a far more active role played by the Avvocatura dello Stato (the legal representation of the Italian State and public administrations), increased procedural objections, and higher levels of adversarial litigation.

Paradoxically, a citizenship proceeding today may prove more complex than labor, family, or even eviction proceedings.

This is further compounded by a glaring contradiction: while the PNRR strongly promotes digitalization, the legislation providing for the centralization of administrative citizenship procedures in Rome starting in 2028 still requires the submission of paper documentation, in open contradiction with the stated objectives of administrative modernization.

A Race Against Time

The latest official data show that, by the end of last year, the reduction in the duration of civil proceedings stood at only 20.1%, exactly half of the required target. This turns the coming months into a genuine race against time for the Italian judicial system.

Justice is indeed accelerating—but within a context of increasing complexity, institutional tension, and strong European pressure.

The challenge is not merely to meet the numerical targets imposed by the PNRR, but to rebuild a system capable of guaranteeing rights efficiently, coherently, and in line with modern standards.

Pablo Munini