Italy government security bill sparks protests in Rome

Rome: A bill being pushed through the Italian legislature by Giorgia Meloni’s government resulted in protests in Rome on Saturday. The bill is being criticized for its alleged reduction of human rights protections in the criminal justice system.

The law strengthens protections for police accused of violence and doles out harsher punishment for protesters. Legal aid, up to €10,000, will be provided to police on duty who are accused of excessive violence. The bill additionally speeds up eviction procedures for illegal squatters and does not allow pregnant women or mothers of young children to avoid jail. Protests resulting in road blockages now have the potential to incur a 2-year jail sentence.

The purpose of the bill is to restore “order, security, and legality.” The bill was introduced in 2024 as part of a large scheme of reform begun in 2021. Since its inception, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights issued a warning about several provisions of the bill, saying the “Bill may aim to rectify some regulatory gaps across legislation, the majority of them have the potential to undermine the fundamental tenets of criminal justice and the rule of law.” Grievances taken with the bill include an expansion of acts constituting terrorism, the revocation of citizenship, and arbitrary enforcement of laws by police.

Earlier in 2021, the government laid out a reform of the criminal justice system. The Italian criminal justice system is slower than other EU member states, and the goal is to make the time of their process closer to the average and reduce the time it takes to reach a judgment. The objectives by the numbers are:

Reducing by 40% the handling times of all civil and commercial litigation proceedings by June 2026 and compared to 2019; by 25% the time required for dealing with all criminal proceedings; and by 90% of the number of cases pending in the ordinary civil courts (first instance) and in the civil courts of appeal (second instance).

This will be done through reducing the length of the procedural process, digitization of certain aspects, investment in the recruitment of professionals at the judicial and administrative level in criminal courts, and greater selectivity of cases at the appeal level.