Innocents behind bars, record compensation in 2023 in Sicily: 6.6 million

Innocents behind barsthrilling numbers from North to South. It amounts to The total compensation paid in Sicily in 2023 is 6.6 million euros For unjust detentionwith an average amount paid equal to 48,782 euros. Last year, our Island’s four judicial districts collected 243 requests: 209 were defined, of which 126 were accepted, 6 declared inadmissible and 77 rejected. The last one Parliament report on unjust detention provides the dimensions of what now appears more like an emergency than a phenomenon, the result of a justice system that often fails spectacularly with irreparable damage for those citizens who, despite themselves, end up in the media meat grinder and find themselves deprived of their freedom for crimes they never committed.

Over one compensation in five concerns Sicily

In 2023 the Italian courts of appeal have issued a total of 619 payment orders, of which 21.1% concerned Sicily. If we then look at the last six years (2018-2023), the figures on compensation paid to Sicilian citizens who are victims of bad justice are mind-boggling: 38.4 million paid as compensation “due to the illegitimacy of the precautionary order”, with the judicial district Palermo is at the top in terms of the amount disbursed (19.6 million), followed by that of Catania (12.5 million); Messina (4.3 million) and Caltanissetta (1.9 million).

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In the North, Justice fails more rarely

In the North, justice fails more rarely. Much smaller numbers, in fact, we find them for example in Lombardy where in 2023 the requests presented to the two There were a total of 94 Courts of Appeal in Milan and Brescia. Of these, 29 were accepted, 37 rejected and 4 declared inadmissible. The compensation paid amounts to “just” one million euros. The data remains more modest even if we project it into the range 2018-2023: almost six million eurosExactly how much in Sicily was disbursed in just one year.

The situation in the rest of Italy

From the Lombardy to Campaniathe situation changes and becomes much more similar to that of Sicily: between 2018 and 2023 the Courts of Appeal of Naples and Salerno hyear arranged overall compensation for 19 million, of which 1.7 million last year alone. Even the region Lazio It has important numbers but they do not equal those of Sicily. The compensation paid by Court of Appeal of Rome from 2018 to 2023 they amount to 18.5 million (of which 2.6 million in 2023 alone against 53 payment orders issued). Last year 129 applications were submitted. Of these, 106 procedures have been defined (49 accepted, 51 rejected and 6 declared inadmissible).

Direct correspondence with magistrates’ errors

The Report rightly places emphasis on the mistake that is often made when establishing a direct correspondence, almost automatic, between unjust detention and magistrate error. “It should then be underlined – we read in the document – ​​that, according to constant jurisprudence of legitimacy, the right to repair it is also configurable if it has been filed a complaint, subsequently subject to remissionor in relation to crimes for which the statute of limitations is subsequently declared due to the passage of time, or even in the case in which the injustice of the detention is related to the requalification of the fact in the merits, with relative declassification of the crime contested in the incident precautionary measure into another less serious one, whose statutory penalty limits would not have allowed the application of the custodial measure”.

Disciplinary proceedings against judges: 88.7% acquitted

Having made this clarification, we cannot fail to note that by looking at the disciplinary proceedings against judges in the years 2017-2022, in88.7% of cases ended with a positive outcome (acquittal and not having to proceed), while there was a negative outcome only in the remaining 11.3% of cases (censure, warning and transfer). Judges almost always “acquitted”, therefore. At this point, the question is legitimate: can economic compensation, whatever the amount, erase the injustice suffered?