GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE SUPREME COURT OF CASSATION INAUGURATION CEREMONY OF THE JUDICIAL YEAR 2015 Mr. President of the Senate of the Republic, here today also in the exercise of the functions of President of the Republic, Authority, Mr. President of the Court of Cassation, Ladies and Gentlemen, in your extensive report, the First President also reported analytically on the results achieved by the Supreme Court in 2014: we must acknowledge the enormous commitment of the magistrates and administrative staff who work there. This is a reason for satisfaction and satisfaction and last but not least - let me say it in the double capacity of institutional representative of the State Advocacy and a simple citizen - of profound and sincere gratitude. This is also the natural place to give an account - briefly - of the work done by the State Advocacy. I do not intend to bore the audience with tables and statistical data: however, some numbers should be known. On a national level, the new business dealt with by the Avvocatura in 2014 amounted to over 138,000: they are added to the several hundreds of thousands of businesses established in previous years and still pending (over 1,000,000). This is an impressive amount of work that weighs on an actual staff in place of just 310 togate units: so that each of them was called in 2014 to take care of an average of 445 new businesses; calculating the business of the previous years, the average pending for each lawyer is equal to approximately 3,700 deals. The heaviness of such a burden is, however, even more evident when comparing these data with those recorded in 1976, the date of the first centenary of the Bar: in that year there were about 41,000 new business and the lawyers and public prosecutors on duty were , overall, 276; as a result, in the span of a little less than forty years, while the number of businesses has undergone an increase of approximately 336%, the staff actually in service called upon to take care of them has increased by only 12.68%. The arid - and yet eloquent - language of numbers is not enough, on its own, to give full knowledge of the activity carried out by the Institute if we do not take into account also - and above all - the spectrum of the sectors of intervention and the subjects dealt with : which is the most varied that can be imagined, given that the Advocacy represents and defends not only the State - in all its articulations - but also a very long list of entities: and this in front of all the national and international and in all types of disputes. A quick overview of the most notable deals dealt with is enough to get a meaningful picture of the intense work done. 1) In 2014, the Avvocatura intervened in 66 judgments before the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Court of First Instance, contributing, also in these fora, to the protection of national interests and the affirmation of important principles. Among the many intervened, we must remember here, for their great social impact, the decision concerning the precarious staff of the school and that relating to the management of landfills. The judgment raised by the German Constitutional Court is in progress which disputes the possibility for the ECB to purchase government bonds of eurozone states from the secondary market; the economic and social implications related to the solution of this question are enormous, especially for our country; It was with pleasure that it was now learned that the defense arguments made by the Advocacy, in favor of allowing the ECB this freedom of action, were shared in the conclusions filed by the Advocate General at the Court of Justice. The primacy of the principles of the EU Treaty must be ensured in any case: so that - as specified in the decision of 11.9.2014 (in case C-112-13) - in the case of an internal rule that is contrary to both the Treaty and the Constitution , the national Judge has in any case the power-duty to submit the question to the Court of Justice and then to proceed with the non-application of the internal rule (and this regardless of any negative ruling of the Constitutional Court to which the centralized control of constitutionality). It should also be remembered the decision that considered the legitimacy of the Italian rules that reserve the sale of specialties subject to medical prescription for pharmacies (case C-159 requests received from the Revenue Agency, a little more than of 4,400 appeals. As you can see, the Attorney's Office makes a considerable selection, discouraging the administration to propose appeals for about one third of the appeals filed. The number of appeals filed against the Agency rises to 4,617. The percentage of victories in tax disputes is The United Sections have clarified that even the appeals in tax matters are subject to the common discipline dictated by the ritual code: and this both as regards the new formulation of n. 5 of article 360 of the Italian Civil Code, and as regards the last paragraph of the added art. 348-ter cpc. In 2014 there were 1125 appeals to the Supreme Court regarding the Pinto law: of these only 25 were those pro placed by the Avvocatura; the deflationary effects of the 2012 reform will be appreciated in the near future: as the requests already started with the old rite are defined. The problem concerning the cross-examination in the administrative stage is subjected to new examination by the Joint Sections: it is a question of establishing whether the guarantees dictated by the 7th paragraph of art. 12 of the l. 2124, n. 3203 sentenced the perpetrators of the massacre committed on 2 August 1980 at the Bologna station to compensate the state for one billion euros. 5) The dispute before the administrative courts was very substantial: it concerned the most varied matters and all types of actions envisaged by the new cpa. The percentage of cases won was 62.50%: the figure refers globally to all the appeals dealt with before the administrative courts (Council of State and TAR). The entire litigation concerning anti-mafia information and tenders for public works and infrastructures required considerable commitment and attention. The decision of the CEO deserves to be mentioned, also for its systematic relevance as well as for the impact that it can derive from it on the public purse. Plen. No. 15 of 25.6.2014 on the subject of astreintes; the imposition of this type of penalty was considered admissible even in cases of sentencing to pay sums: it is the result of the defense of the Attorney's Office to specify that penalties cannot be imposed in cases in which the administration deduces circumstances preventing timely payment from reasons related to budgetary or public finance constraints. Quantitatively significant and objectively demanding was the dispute originating from the procedures relating to the scientific qualifications of I and II level university professors. There is always a large number of disputes relating to the suitability exams for the legal profession. Particularly delicate, and also in this case numerous, are the appeals lodged by ordinary magistrates against the provisions of the CSM on the subject of executive and semi-executive positions. The dispute concerning the provisions of the independent Authorities is also very demanding, due to the complexity of the underlying legal issues and the economic importance that characterizes it, to which the one related to the EXPO has been added. 6) Approximately 54% of the cases won before the District Courts; while the percentage of cases won before the Court of Appeal was 53%. It should be noted that these statistical data refer globally to all civil, labor and criminal litigation dealt with at the aforementioned judicial offices. The monochromatic decrees accepting requests for compensation pursuant to Law are not included in the calculation. Pinto: the new rite introduced in 2012 provides that the dispute will close with the filing of the unheard-of decree, except that opposition to the decree is proposed; and this happens in sporadic cases. This legislative change has significantly reduced the overload of the roles of the colleges of the Court of Appeal: but not that of the Advocacy, which is called upon to carry out a careful assessment of the individual events in relation to each decree, acquiring the documents and instructing the deal in order to establish whether or not to propose opposition. 7) In a consultative session, the State Attorney, in addition to the usual consultancy activity related to the management of disputes and to that carried out with regard to transactions and amicable settlements, provided its opinion on many issues of great importance: dealt with (and resolved with the subsequent signing of an articulated agreement) the many problems that arose between state administrations and the Bank of Italy in relation to the management of the foreclosure deeds carried out at the latter, as a distrained third party; in disciplinary matters, the relationships between disciplinary and criminal proceedings concerning the same facts were examined; Numerous issues have been resolved regarding the reimbursement of legal expenses to employees acquitted in criminal proceedings or in accounting proceedings; precise and detailed indications were provided to resolve the dispute with the victims of blood transfusions in the settlement; many opinions have concerned public procurement and works: among them the one on the self-protection powers of the PA in the procurement of strategic infrastructures and the one relating to the institutions of the settlement and the amicable agreement; the opinion regarding the fee due to the Italian railway network by transport companies should still be noted. 8) The Institute, already as of June 30, was able to ensure the electronic deposits required by the new legislation; The PEC notification system is also fully operational. In its action, the Advocacy has managed to enter all the technical and institutional tables that have been formed regarding the PCT: providing its specific legal support in order to harmonize the new procedural discipline with the peculiarities of the tax dispute, often forgotten in the past. The dematerialization of paper reached about 70% on a national scale in 2014; the electronic file in the Avvocatura is fully functional, facilitating exchanges and remote consultation. As required by art. 8 of Legislative Decree No. 5 of 9.2.2012, the procedure for the management of applications for the recent competition for state attorney was carried out entirely in telematic mode, fully integrated with the internal protocol and management systems. The numerous publication obligations on the Institute's website have been fulfilled and the legislation providing for the obligation of electronic invoicing has been fully implemented (since last June). It is hoped that with an adequate financial support policy, the resources necessary for further deferrable IT developments can be increased. 9) As already observed in the previous inaugurations by the Avvocati Generali, Avv. Ignazio Caramazza and lawyer Michele Dipace, the Institute's functionality is threatened by insufficient resources: both human and economic. The shortage of professional staff has become no longer sustainable: the wish expressed several times in recent years to free the Institute from the penalizing limitation in the turnover of professional staff has not been fulfilled; on the contrary, due to the recent intervention carried out by l. 114/2014, the impoverishment has further worsened. In progress, 50 places have been discovered out of a staff of 370; when the 10 units placed out of office are taken into account, the actual percentage of uncovering exceeds 16.2%. The Institute awaits the appointment of the Advocate General and the Deputy Advocate General; three out of eight Deputy Advocates General are on duty; no less than 8 district attorneys have no district attorney: among them the most important (Naples, Milan, Bologna, Florence, Trieste, Catania, Cagliari and Caltanissetta). The regulatory interventions concerning the Institute cannot fail to take into due account the amount of tasks entrusted to your care and the specific peculiarities that characterize the role of State lawyers: as always reiterated by this Court - I draw the words from the recent sentence no. . 13156/2014 - "the tasks of representation and defense in court by the Avvocatura dello Stato present absolutely peculiar and different characteristics with respect to the role of the defenders of the free forum and the legal offices of other public administrations, since its activity is directed to pursuit of general public interests and the implementation of the principle of legality ". The task of guardian of legality entrusted to each state lawyer is characterized by operating at 360 degrees: in accordance with the teaching given in 1876 by the first Advocate General, Avv. Giuseppe Mantellini, state lawyers must be "first judges" of the work of the administrations and once the legitimacy and substantive justice of their subjective situations have been ascertained, they must be attentive and vigilant "lawyers". The state lawyer in carrying out the aforementioned task of 'judge' of the administration is required to carry out and have a single and comprehensive consideration and vision of all the interests involved in the events submitted to his examination and treatment. All the bodies of the Institute fully cooperate in carrying out this arduous task: the individual lawyer has the power-duty to liaise with colleagues, to involve the holders of managerial positions and to ask for the collegial examination of any question. It is the duty of the Institute and its lawyers to elaborate, with independence of judgment, homogeneous guidelines, carrying out - especially in consultative session - a continuous action of connection, connection and mediation between the various state administrations and between these and the regions, seeking solutions that protect general public interests and the concrete and effective implementation of the principle of legality. These are tasks that go beyond those of the profession of lawyer: activities that objectively must be counted and considered not as mere provision of services of a legal nature, but rather - as well noted by Avv. General Giuseppe Manzari - as an expression of the exercise of a particular public function: with a happy formula highlighted the lawyer. Manzari that the state lawyer is "'the lawyer of duty', this being the characterizing data of the 'public service'", while the lawyer of the free forum "is the lawyer of subjective rights (in a broad sense), such being ... the autonomy and freedom to be ensured to every subject in a legal system that aspires to define itself as the rule of law ". And it is not without significance that the provision of the professional attorney's staff in the role of state lawyer is carried out through a very selective competition, which can only be accessed by persons who in turn have carried out the activity of ordinary or administrative magistrate for some years. or as a state attorney or as a lawyer for 6 years. The discipline concerning the legal status of the State lawyer must consider a precious asset the particular configuration of their role which sees them at the same time 'judges' and 'lawyers' of the public administrations and must favor in all ways the full implementation of the exercise of both the aforementioned functions. Therefore, it is not possible to legally consider the State Attorney's Office - especially as regards the problems inherent to the professional staff - as an administration of pure management. I conclude by observing that the extremely difficult moment that the country continues to go through requires all the institutions and all of us to make the utmost commitment in carrying out the tasks entrusted to us. I am sure I can assure you that the State Advocacy and its members will make every possible effort; as well as I am certain of the sure attention that will be given to the problems of the Institute which I have considered it my duty to represent here. Thank you for listening to me. Rome 23 January 2015 Salvatore Messineo