From the “separation of careers” has been talked about for about 20 years. Initially proposed also by jurists, magistrates and left-wing political exponents, the separation of careers was definitively approved on 30 October 2025 by Parliament with a centre-right majority.
Since it is a constitutional reform, and since it did not obtain a two-thirds majority in the four votes that approved it (two in the House and two in the Senate), the confirmatory referendum will be held on 22-23 March. No quorum is required: whatever the number of voters, the referendum will decide Yes or No even if only for one vote.
Here is what the reform provides, in detail, for each of its sectors of intervention.
What is “career separation”
Separation of careers is a very different thing from “separation of duties”.
In recent years, regulatory changes have already been introduced which have progressively reduced to a minimum the transitions from the function of judge to that of public prosecutor, and vice versa. The latest reform by Minister Marta Cartabia (in June 2022, under the government of Mario Draghi), established that a prosecutor or a judge can change function only once in a lifetime; before 2022 the “ceiling” was 4 times.
But this is not the object of the reform. The separation of careers has much more profound effects than the separation of functions: it creates a system according to which judges and prosecutors will have training and professional paths that are totally distinct from each otherbecause these paths will be governed by two different constitutional bodies.
Until now, in fact, prosecutors and judges have been part of a single order, the “ordinary judiciary”, and everything concerning their careers – i.e. training, assignments of roles and posts, transfers, external assignments, professionalism assessments, promotions, disciplinary proceedings, and even sanctions – has always been governed and decided by a single Superior Council of the Judiciary (the CSM).
Degeneration caused by currents
In recent decades, however, it has occurred a serious degeneration of the system, caused by the currents into which the judiciary is divided – today there are five – which in recent decades have become increasingly similar to small parties and share power and seats both in the CSM and in the National Association of the Judiciary (the ANM), which is the “union” of the category.
The currents of the judiciary have dramatically increased their power, especially in the CSM, where they have created an opaque system of exchanges on promotions and the assignment of the most important roles, and even on disciplinary proceedings.
This has transformed the CSM into a kind of “market”: it happens that the currents organize “packages” of appointments at the top of the more or less important judicial offices, then the current A agrees with the current B, or C, and at that point Only designated candidates “pass”..
The same happens for disciplinary sanctions; Here too, an under-the-table agreement between two currents is enough. And the statistics are consolidated: the vast majority of magistrates subjected to proceedings are “saved” by a dismissal, and the few sanctions are extremely small.
The flaws of the current system
The result is that a system has been created – which emerged publicly in May 2019 thanks to the scandal linked to the chats found on Luca Palamaraat the time (and for many years) leader of one of the currents, Independent Judiciary – in which making a career for a magistrate who is not a member of a current is practically impossible.
This system it undermines the professional growth of a large number of quality judges (almost always the least ideological ones), who cannot access senior roles. And it’s the leverage that accentuates the politicization of part of the judiciary.
The system has even more serious effects on judicial activity, because being part of a faction exposes the judge or prosecutor to the obligation to respect undue constraints of loyalty to the faction to which he belongs. Supporters of the reform (and of the Yes vote in the referendum) are convinced that if power is taken away from the currents, depriving them of control over the careers of prosecutors and judges in the CSM, this serious risk will also be mitigated.
Today, in fact, connections between currents and currents increase the possibilities of anomalous relationships between judges and prosecutors. There is also an alarming statistic, which concerns preliminary investigations: the prosecutor’s requests (arrests, wiretaps, seizures…) come accepted without too many problems by the judges for the preliminary investigations (the investigating magistrates): this occurs on average from 95 to over 99, depending on the type of request (interceptions at the top, with 99.5%)
But the problem is also present in processes. Anyone who has been accused knows this well. The first thought that goes through the head of anyone who sits at the prosecution bar in a courtroom is: will the prosecutor and the judge agree with each other? Is there a relationship that binds them?
The current system, in reality, it even puts the correctness of sentences at risk. In 2017, in Milan, a magistrate denounced, in an anonymous interview with Panoramathat a current had put pressure on “its” judge (one of its adherents, in short) so that he “adapted” the decision he would have to take in a trial to the requests of the prosecutor of another faction: this had only happened because, in the CSM, the votes of the PM faction were necessary for the judge’s faction to place a candidate in a certain important prosecutor’s office. It is not known exactly what the judge’s verdict was when he was subjected to the pressure of his current, but it is not unlikely that he accepted them: those who rebel against the currents usually risk drawing inevitable disadvantages for their career.
The system today and after the reform
The current CSM, which took office in January 2023 and will expire in January 2027 (and only at that point, if the referendum passes, will the new rules of the Nordio reform come into force) is made up of 33 members:
- 3 members are members by right: the head of state, who is also automatically president of the CSM, plus the first president of the Court of Cassation and the attorney general of the Cassation;
- 20 members are magistrates, elected by the entire category on the basis of competing lists, formed by the different currents of the judiciary, and are called “professed members”;
- 10 members are elected by Parliament from among university professors in legal subjects or lawyers with at least 15 years of practicing the profession, and these are the “lay members”.
The reform profoundly modifies this system, creating two separate and distinct CSMs:
1) the Superior Council of the Judicial Judiciary, responsible for judges;
2) the Superior Council of the prosecuting judiciary, responsible for prosecutors.
These two new CSMs will have the same composition (33 members) and the same duration (4 years) as the current CSM.
Therefore three members by right will still be part of it and they will still be chaired by the President of the Republic.
Just like today, the two separate CSMs will also be made up of one third of “lay” members and two thirds of “professional” members. However, there will be a substantial difference for the magistrates component, because in the first of the two CSMs only judges will be present, and in the other only prosecutors.
The independence of the judiciary
One of the main defects blamed on the reform concerns the independence of the judiciary, now guaranteed by article 104 of our Constitution, the first paragraph of which states: «The judiciary constitutes an autonomous order independent of any other power».
The opponents of the reform, starting from the ANM, they claim that the government intends to place the judiciary under its control. It must be said, however, that the first paragraph of the art. 104 does not change meaning. The new version contains only one addition: «The judiciary constitutes an autonomous order and independent of any other power, and is made up of magistrates from the judging career and the prosecuting career».
This new text, in short, does not appear to weaken the independence and autonomy of magistrates: it strengthens it, if anything, because – by specifying the double categorization – it makes any ordinary law impossible in the future which aims to regulate the activity of even just prosecutors or judges. To arrive at the result denounced by the supporters of the No vote in the referendum, in short, However, a new constitutional reform would be needed.
The draw for the two new CSMs
A second fundamental part of the reform concerns the electoral system of the two new CSMswhich for the first time in history will be based on draw.
The reform establishes that the “lay” members will be drawn by lot from a list of university professors of legal subjects and lawyers with at least 15 years’ experience: this list (how long it is not yet known) will be drawn up by the next Parliament in joint session, which will have to approve it within six months of its inauguration.
As for the “professed” members, the reform establishes that «within one year of the entry into force of the reform» Parliament will have to promulgate implementing rules, which will establish how the “basket” will be composed of judges and prosecutors (around 9,000 in total) they will be drawn at random to enter the respective two new CSMs.
The High Disciplinary Court
The reform also introduces a new tool, the High Disciplinary Courtwho is given the task – which today falls to a commission of the current CSM, governed by “professed” members – of investigating and sanctioning the illicit behavior of magistrates. The High Court will have jurisdiction over all magistrates: both prosecutors and judges.
The High Court will be composed of 15 members:
- 3 must be appointed by the President of the Republic from among university professors and lawyers with at least 20 years of practice;
- 3 will be drawn by lot from a list of subjects with the same requirements, which Parliament will choose within six months of taking office;
- 6 judges and 3 prosecutors will be drawn by lot among those belonging to the respective categories, in this case with at least 20 years of service: this means, therefore, that within the High Court the magistrates will be the absolute majority (there will be 9 in total, against 6 “lay people”) and that among them the judges will be a relative majority.
- The President of the High Court will be appointed from among the members appointed by the President of the Republic or by Parliament.
The objectives of the reform
The objectives of the reform are mainly three:
- The two distinct CSMs have the aim of completely separating the careers between prosecutors and judgespreventing undue connections and contacts between them and between their respective currents, increasing (and making it much more concrete and effective) the independence and “third party” of the judge.
- The system of drawing lots for “professed” members is a crucial step, because – after a useless series of attempts to reform the electoral system of the CSM – today it is considered the only system capable of countering the excessive power of the currents of which the magistrates are part.
- The High Disciplinary Court should make disciplinary actions more transparent and effective. According to official data from the Ministry of Justice, today almost 97% of cases opened against magistrates are dismissed before they are even debated. In 2023, the CSM, out of 1,854 reports, dealt with just 68 (3.6%). The results: 27 acquittals for “no place to proceed”, 6 acquittals for “not having to proceed”, 20 full acquittals and 15 convictions (0.8% of the total).
