The Italian judiciary is to reach full staffing levels by 2026, Justice Minister Carlo Nordio said on Wednesday.
"By 2026 we will reach the full staffing of the judiciary, something that has never happened in the last 50 years," Nordiotold Sky Tg24.
The minister spoke of 250 additional magistrates to be hired as a result of changes to the system for deciding on precautionary measures under a justice reform bill currently before parliament and 1,300 additional places to be filled through a competitive selection procedure currently underway.
On Tuesday the Senate approved the so-called Nordio reform with 104 votes in favor and 56 votes against.
The bill now passes to the Lower House for final approval.
The bill includes a broad package of reforms including aclamp-down on the publication of information obtained from wiretaps, the cancellation of prosecutors' rights to appeal against acquittals for many minor crimes, the abolition of the crime of abuse of office and the introduction of a new collegial system for ruling on pre-trial detention and other precautionary measures.
Currently such decisions are the prerogative of the preliminary interrogations judge.
The reform has come under fire from opposition parties and magistrates, who fear it will also pave the way for the controversial separation of the career paths of Italian judges and prosecutors so they can no longer move between the roles.
This has been a pet policy of centre-right governments for two decades.
However, last month the president of Milan's Court of Appeal, Giuseppe Ondei, said Italy's justice system does not need "reformist bulimia" but rather "to be administered and funded to(...) cope with ordinary and extraordinary needs such as those imposed by the objectives of the NRRP".
"In a situation of increasing shortage of administrative staff" and "magistrates", he added that these objectives involving areduction in case backlogs and the duration of legal proceedings are at risk.
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