Italian Constitutional Court (Corte costituzionale italiana), No. 236/2015, 19 November 2015

Ineligibility for elections following final conviction.

Art. 2, Constitution
Art. 4, par. 2 Constitution
Art. 51, par. 1 Constitution
Art. 97, par. 2 Constitution
Art. 11, par. 1 Legislative Decree No 235, 31/12/2012

1. The discipline of incandidability - which has a long series of precedents in the Italian legislation adopted since 1990 to deal with serious cases of illegality in the public administration - in fact constitutes neither a criminal sanction nor a criminal effect of a conviction; it is rather the measure chosen by the legislature in the event that it is ascertained, albeit temporarily, that one of the subjective requirements for accessing and holding one of the elected offices indicated is no longer met.

2. The choice of the legislator to provide that a conviction for a series of offences against the public administration, even if not final, gives rise to the precautionary requirement to temporarily suspend the officeholder is therefore reasonable, even in the case of its application to current terms of office, since it is a matter of safeguarding the public administration from the risk of pollution and protecting its credibility.
(The question of the constitutional legitimacy of Article 11, paragraph 1, lett. a) of Legislative Decree no. 235 of 31 December 2012 - in relation to the previous Article 10, paragraph 1, lett. c) - raised with reference to Articles 2, 4 second paragraph, 51 first paragraph and 97, second paragraph of the Italian Constitution, which suspends as of right from the offices of president of the province, mayor, councillor and provincial and municipal councillor those who have received a non-final conviction, among others, for the crime of abuse of office, is not well founded).