Italy’s Constitutional Court has ruled unconstitutional a law capping gross salaries for public employees at €240,000. This decision immediately reinstates the previous benchmark, aligning the maximum compensation with the salary of the First President of the Court of Cassation.
The court affirmed that imposing a salary ceiling for public employees is not inherently unconstitutional. However, it ruled that such a cap must be established, as was the practice until 2014, by a decree from the Prime Minister following consultation with relevant parliamentary committees.
The court clarified that because the unconstitutionality arose over time (“supervening unconstitutionality”), the ruling is not retroactive. Its effects commence only the day after the judgment is published in the Official Gazette.
The pay ceiling was originally introduced via a 2011 emergency decree during the national financial crisis, linking it to the Court of Cassation President’s salary for all individuals receiving public funds. A 2014 decree then fixed the cap at the €240,000 amount, which the court noted significantly reduced the remuneration of some judges.
Initially, the measure was deemed constitutional as an extraordinary and temporary response to the exceptional crisis. The court stated that over time, however, the cap permanently lost this essential characteristic of temporariness – a requirement crucial for safeguarding judicial independence and ensuring constitutional compliance.
The court further determined that the unconstitutional nature of the fixed cap, due to its general applicability, necessarily applies to all public employees.