Supreme Court Criminal United Sections: Grounds on Prescription and Intertemporal Law

1. The fact

   The case arises from a series of appeals regarding minor offenses and misdemeanors committed between August 3, 2017 and December 31, 2019, a period during which the so-called 2017 reform was in force. According to reports from outlets such as Sistema Penale and Diritto e Giustizia, several defendants had claimed that the crimes were time-barred during appeal or Supreme Court stages, arguing that the 2021 reform, by repealing the rules on prescription suspension, had retroactively eliminated the eighteen-month extension provided by the old regime.

   The matter reached the highest level of judicial review after single sections of the Supreme Court expressed conflicting orientations: some believed that the express repeal should favor the defendant by eliminating the suspension, while others argued that the rule should remain applicable to acts committed under its validity. The proceedings reached the United Sections at a crucial interpretive stage, while the Court of Appeal of Lecce parallelly raised a question of constitutionality, the resolution of which by the Constitutional Court definitively established the legitimacy of the 2017 reform's survival for that specific time window.

2. 

   The norms at play

   The legal analysis revolves around the rules on the suspension of prescription, in the version introduced by the 2017 reform, which provided for the suspension of prescription for a maximum of 1.5 years after a first-instance conviction and another 1.5 years after the appeal judgment. This rule served to prevent the extinction of the crime during the appeal stages. The 2021 reform subsequently repealed these paragraphs, while introducing the definitive block of prescription after the first-instance sentence and the new institution of Improcedibility for exceeding trial duration limits.

   Finally, the rules on the succession of criminal laws over time establish the principle of lex mitior, according to which, among different laws that have followed one another, the one whose provisions are overall more favorable to the offender must be applied. The interpretive challenge was to determine whether the repeal of the 2017 suspension should be considered an isolated favorable event or whether it should be read in the context of a new system which, by blocking prescription permanently, is paradoxically more severe for the defendant.

3. What case law says

   The case law of legitimacy has clarified that the prescription regime must be evaluated as a unitary block. The United Sections have established that the suspension regime provided by the 2017 reform continues to apply to crimes committed during its period of validity because the subsequent system, while no longer having those suspensions, provides for a total block of the term's progress which would anyway prevent prescription in subsequent stages. Therefore, the 2017 regime remains the most favorable possible for those who committed the act between 2017 and 2019, as it ensures that prescription continues to run, albeit with eighteen-month pauses.

   The Constitutional Court confirmed this approach, specifying that there is no violation of the principle of legality or equality. According to reports in the specialized press, the Court observed that the legislator can differentiate temporal regimes as long as there is a rational justification linked to the transition between systemic reforms. In this journalistic view, the absence of this survival would lead to an unreasonable regulatory void, leading to the indiscriminate prescription of serious crimes just because of a technicality related to the timing of the repeal, betraying the purpose of judicial efficiency.

5. Analysis drafted and verified with edit.legal

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8. What it teaches professionals

   1. The evaluation of lex mitior must be carried out in concrete and globally, comparing entire regulatory systems and not single isolated provisions.
   2. It is essential to verify the date of the crime with millimeter precision, as a difference of a few days between 2019 and 2020 determines the transition between the ordinary prescription regime and that of improcedibility.
   3. One must not rely on the formal repeal of a rule if it is part of a system reform that provides for its replacement with more burdensome institutions.
   4. Strategic management of trial timing requires deep knowledge of transitional rules to avoid unfounded prescription exceptions that could unnecessarily accelerate the judgment.

References: Sentenza 38/2026 della Corte CostituzionaleRiforma del 2021Disciplina del 2017Codice PenaleSistema PenaleDiritto e Giustizia

Editorial oversight: Avv. Federico Papa·ICAMUpdated 27 October 2026Content drafted with AI support and subject to editorial source checks. Despite these controls, inaccuracies may remain: reports and rectification requests are welcome. Report a correction