The Supreme Court of Appeals annulled the verdict of the Rome preliminary hearing judge in the case of improper receipt of citizenship income, which the capital’s prosecutor, Carlo Villani, objected to in connection with the request to refer the case to the case. The preliminary hearing judge canceled the request for trial and returned the documents to the prosecutor. An “abnormal” behavior for the deputy prosecutor who saw that his appeal was accepted by the judges of the 3rd Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals.
The prosecutor objected to Article 7, paragraph 1, of Decree Law No. 4/2019, which states that persons who “give or use false statements or documents, or certify untruths, or omit necessary information” in order to unfairly obtain citizenship income. Although “a prison sentence of two to six years” was imposed, the law in dispute was “repealed as of January 1, 2024”, according to the pre-trial judge. And, given that the crime of false documentation to obtain irregular citizenship income could no longer be challenged, another unspecified but possibly identifiable type of crime in the irregular receipt of public funds also had to be challenged. According to the prosecutor, this decision constituted an abnormal measure because it led to “an unjust suspension of the proceedings”.
In their decision, the high judges based prosecutor Villani’s objection on solid grounds, as “the invalidation of the request for postponement of the hearing made by the preliminary hearing judge constitutes an abnormal action.” In particular, for the judges of the Third Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, the preliminary hearing judge “decides on the invalidity of the request for judgment because he finds a defect in the indictment with respect to the descriptive content of the conduct in dispute or the violation of the accusatory provision in question, but only because he takes into account the postponed annulment in the referred case; “Given that the dispute was ritually brought under a 1993 law, it is a situation which will not permit any declaration of invalidity and force and is valid for that time”. The decision of the preliminary hearing judge was therefore objectively irregular, relying on a ground of invalidity not provided for in law or, to use the effective expression that can be read on appeal, some kind of expected ground of invalidity for deferred annulment. “The principle of procedural inertia developed by the Supreme Court, which is considered abnormal because it leads to unnecessary delay of the trial, can be applied to the matter in question.”
With the decision, the chief justices ordered the documents to be forwarded to the GUP in Rome for “further processing” and issued a warning to those who thought they could get away with it.
Source: Today IT
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
