Supporters of the campaign against the constitutional referendum celebrate their victory in Genoa, Italy.
EPA/LUCA ZENNARO
Italian voters rejected a government-backed overhaul of the judiciary in a referendum that drew unexpectedly high turnout despite its complexity. A legal scholar and two political scientists explain what was at stake.
The proposal, championed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Justice Minister Carlo Nordio, aimed to overhaul key aspects of the judicial system, including the relationship between judges and prosecutors.
In a constitutional referendum held on March 22–23, around 54% of voters rejected what came to be known as the “Nordio” reform, while 46% supported it.
Political scientist Hervé Rayner said the high turnout was the most striking feature of the vote. About 59% of eligible voters took part.External link That is significantly more than the 51% recorded in the 2020 constitutional referendum.
Meloni had argued the reform would make the justice system faster, more efficient and more accountable. The now-failed reform proposed a wide range of changes to the judicial system. Public debate focused on the proposal to separate the career paths of prosecutors and judges. In Italy, judges can occupy a position in the public prosecutor’s office during their careers, and vice versa.
‘The content of the reform was extremely unclear’
The debate was polarised primarily along political lines. “It ultimately came down to who people trusted more: the government or the opposition. The opposition claimed it would lead to politicisation of the judiciary, while the government argued that the judiciary would become more efficient,” explained Swiss political scientist Hanspeter Kriesi, who spent many years at the European University Institute in Florence.
Kriesi does not see the results as a signal to the Italian government. “It was a vote on a specific issue – judicial reform – not a signal to representative politics. But the content of the reform was extremely unclear.”
The content of the reform sparked much debate among experts. In an article published during the campaign, legal scholars Chiara Gentile and Paolo Mazzotti made it clear that they themselves were against such “career changes”. In practice though, they said, these career paths were already separate.
The Nordio reformExternal link, they wrote, “seems to instrumentalise their separation to delegitimise magistrates”, as it envisaged, among other things, the separation and disempowerment of the self-governing body for judges and prosecutors. If the reform went through, Gentile and Mazzotti feared a shift of power towards the executive.
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Comparison with France and Portugal
During the debate, Italy was often compared with the French or Portuguese legal systems, Gentile told Swissinfo. “In France, judges and public prosecutors are recruited through the École nationale de la magistrature. They belong to the same institution,” she noted, while also pointing out one crucial difference. French “prosecutors are hierarchically subordinate to the executive branch, whereas in Italy they operate independently of it.”
In Portugal, Gentile added, the career paths of judges and prosecutors are separate and there are two supervisory bodies. In Italy, meanwhile, judges and prosecutors have up to now been subject to a unitary independent self-governing body, the High Council of the Judiciary (Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura). Had the constitutional reform been successful, Italy would have moved closer to the Portuguese model.
Other legal experts, meanwhile, supported the reform. “Prosecutors are just as much a party to the proceedings as defence lawyers. Judges, however, must be independent,” Italian constitutional lawyer Stefano Ceccanti told SRFExternal link.
>>There are criteria to ensure a referendum is fair. Read more about this in our explanatory article:
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What it takes for a referendum to be fair
When are constitutional referendums held in Italy?
A referendum is required in Italy for constitutional reforms that fail to secure a two-thirds majority in parliament. “The government actually didn’t even attempt this in parliament,” said Rayner of the University of Lausanne. To do so, the coalition would have had to present a compromise proposal. “As it was, there was no parliamentary debate at all last autumn. They were so sure they would win,” Rayner said.
He had already taken a critical stance to the proposed reform last autumn in the newspaper Le MondeExternal link, seeing it as an attempt to bring the independent judiciary under control.
The judiciary has been a recurring theme in Italian politics for decades. Using the current debate on the judiciary as a starting point, Rayner outlined the crisis in the Italian party system and the realignment of the Italian right under Silvio Berlusconi: “Giorgia Meloni inherited this reform – but she herself was a strong advocate for it, particularly in the final stages.”
30 years of debate on the judicial system in Italy
From 1992 to 1994, Italy experienced an unprecedented judicial investigation into political corruption. “Investigations were launched against almost 350 members of parliament and around 100 senators from the five parties that had dominated the government since 1946. The parties, such as the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, very quickly lost ground.” According to Rayner, the predecessor parties of Prime Minister Meloni’s current right-wing alliance had strongly supported the prosecutors’ investigation. A Lega party representative had even brought a hangman’s noose into parliament to underscore his accusations, he said.
However, the right-wing parties of the time, which had taken a stand against corruption among the then dominant parties, completely reversed their position after businessman Silvio Berlusconi entered politics and united the right-wing forces. “Thirty years ago, Carlo Nordio – now minister of justice and then a judge – was hailed by Berlusconi’s media outlets for criticising the corruption investigators.”
During Berlusconi’s years in government – first from 1994 and then again from 2001 and 2008 – some of his lawyers held seats in parliament and in the Ministry of Justice, Rayner said. They “enacted tailor-made laws for Berlusconi to prevent legal proceedings for corruption and party financing.” This background is key, he added, to understanding why judicial reform was a generational project for one political camp.
In the run-up to the vote, both Kriesi and Rayner expected it to be a close call.
Youth vote
It is still unclear to Rayner whether the “no” votes were primarily a decision in favour of an independent judiciary or against Meloni’s government. “Referendum outcomes, like election results, always have a multitude of reasons,” he said. According to the figures available, the vast majority of under-34s were against the reform.
This, the political scientist added, testified to the high level of mobilisation among young people, many of whom are critical of Meloni – not least because of international issues such as her close ties to the US president and the Middle East conflict. Overall, he said, the “no” camp succeeded in generating momentum during the referendum campaign, not so much among the centre-left opposition parties as in civil society. Thus, a petition launched by legal professionals garnered 500,000 signatures against the reform.
A certain feeling of constitutional patriotism may also have played a role in some people’s decision to vote against the reform. “As in Switzerland, the constitution is held in high regard by parts of the population,” Rayner said.
Since 2000, Italians have voted 13 times in referendums. The last constitutional referendum took place in 2020. In the case of “abrogative” referendums, however – the last of which was held in 2025 – Italy has a 50% turnout threshold for the results to be valid. This is hardly ever achieved. One reason is that the opponents choose to campaign against participation, rather than just campaigning for a “no” vote.
>>Read our article about the 2025 referendums in Italy.
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Italy’s referendum flop sends a warning to the left
Edited by Marc Leutenegger. Adapted from German by Julia Bassam/ds
