Unfair charges and reimbursement of legal costs by the State: light and shade of the new Italian law

This essay analyses Article 1(1015) et seq. of Law no. 178/2020 and the related Inter-ministerial Decree of 20th December 2021, that - for the first time within the Italian criminal procedure system - aims at introducing general rules on the reimbursement of legal costs by the State to the acquitted person. The new discipline takes a significant step forward, nevertheless it reveals serious and widespread glitches, e.g. with regard to its extent, the terms for submitting the relevant application and for what concerns the relations with other procedural institutions. Its collocation, outside the Code of Criminal Procedure, also seems inappropriate. Furthermore, the sums allocated by the State (EUR eight million per year) are completely insufficient to guarantee the effectiveness of the aforementioned rules, if compared to the number of acquittals, which can be inferred from official statistics. The Author outlines reform proposals, also in the light of government data concerning the number and the results of proceedings.