Italian Government Proposes Civil Justice System Reforms

The Italian government has enacted a Decree containing urgent measures to reform the Italian civil judicial system and to deal with the backlog of pending cases. Published in the Italian Official Gazette on September 12, 2014, the Decree officially entered into force on September 13, 2014. Within 60 days of publication, the Italian Parliament must convert the Decree into law; otherwise, it will retroactively cease to be effective. During the conversion process, the Parliament could make amendments to the text of the Decree.

Decrees are issued by the government in cases of necessity and urgency. In the present case, according to the Decree's explanatory report, it was necessary and critical for Italy to reduce the duration of Italian court proceedings in order to put an end to its violations of the "reasonable time" requirement for a fair trial set forth in Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights. Moreover, the government aims to transform the Italian