Access to the Supreme Court – the Italian Approach

The text focuses on the problem of limiting access to the Italian Corte di cassazione. According to the author, the access to cassation court is considered a constitutional right in Italy and should not be subject to restrictions. This point of view is supported by the jurisprudence of the Italian Constitutional Court, which abolished the obligation to file a money deposit in 1977. As a consequence, the access to the Corte di cassazione turns out to be limitless. This state of affairs results in a significant backlog of the Court, which deals with circa 30,000 cases on an annual basis. The requirement of obligatory legal representation does not decrease the number of cassations, given a vast number of specialised attorneys who are authorised to act before Corte di cassazione. In order to deal with the increasing number of cassations, a new chamber of the Court was created in order to assess the admissibility of cassation. Nonetheless, it did not significantly affect the influx of cases, nor did it improve duration of the proceedings