Milan, Italy – Over 9,000 investigation files, already processed by prosecutors, are lying dormant in the offices of the Milan Prosecutor’s Office. This significant backlog is attributed to a chronic shortage of administrative staff, specifically a 35% deficit of clerks, with some expert clerk positions experiencing a 67% vacancy rate. The inability to “discharge” these files is severely delaying the subsequent stages of legal proceedings, impacting individuals awaiting trial, archiving, or notification of their complaints’ outcomes.
Thousands of cases in limbo
The staggering figure of 9,000 stalled files was revealed through an unprecedented manual count initiated by a quarter of the prosecutors in service. While a direct extrapolation to the entire office would be an oversimplification, it is estimated that at least 20,000 to 25,000 files, already defined by the 80 prosecutors, are currently in a similar state of paralysis. Some of these files have been pending for several months, and in some instances, even up to a year.
Organizational challenges exacerbate the problem
The situation has been further complicated by changes in the organizational structure of the Prosecutor’s Office. In the past, each prosecutor had a dedicated assistant. However, to mitigate the administrative staff shortage, the office transitioned to shared secretariats (one clerk for two magistrates) or even centralized secretariats in some pools, where a few clerks manage the workflow for all prosecutors in that pool. These new models have led to logistical confusion, inaccuracies, and delays in fulfilling obligations, many of which have been multiplied by recent legislative interventions. The lack of a personal relationship and physical proximity between clerks and prosecutors has resulted in a loss of overall vision of the prosecutor’s activities, leading to wasted time, energy, and misunderstandings.
Adding to these challenges is the mandatory use of the ministerial telematic platform, App, for certain procedural segments. Despite its intended purpose, the platform’s structural dysfunctions consume more time and effort in the chancelleries rather than streamlining the work.
Declining performance indicators and emerging issues
Over the past year in Milan, final outstanding cases have increased by 22.3% compared to initial ones. The replacement index has plummeted to 76, and the disposal index to 0.36. This decline in performance is starting to manifest in concrete incidents. For example, an undated and unstamped anonymous document inexplicably found its way into a sensitive investigation concerning data theft. In another instance, documents transmitted by a judge, hypothesizing false testimony by a police officer involved in the murder of a drug dealer in Rogoredo, were not received for over a year.
Inspection fails to capture the true extent of the problem
A periodic inspection by the Ministry of Justice is currently underway in the chancelleries of the Milan Prosecutor’s Office. However, these inspections do not account for the 9,000 stalled files because ministerial systems only differentiate between pending and defined cases. Since these 9,000 files have not been “discharged,” they technically do not “exist” in the system, artificially inflating the number of pending cases. This creates significant problems for prosecutors who cannot provide updates to lawyers and whose professional evaluations are negatively impacted by these “false” pending statistics. Furthermore, seemingly stalled files can lead to disciplinary proceedings against prosecutors, where organizational dysfunctions may not be enough to absolve them of responsibility.
The root cause: chronic staff shortages and uncompetitive salaries
The chronic shortage of clerks is a nationwide issue, particularly acute in northern cities like Milan. Despite the Ministry of Justice’s efforts to hire 3,586 new staff since 2022 and plan for another 3,659 by 2026, along with the stabilization of 6,000 Pnrr-linked Process Office employees, new hires barely keep pace with retirements. Moreover, clerks are increasingly migrating to other administrations, such as the Revenue Agency or Customs, where salaries and career prospects are more attractive.
In Milan, the situation is exacerbated by the high cost of living. Clerks earning a basic gross salary of 21,400 euros, the same as their counterparts in other regions, struggle to afford rent and daily expenses. This often leads them to seek transfers to judicial offices in Central and Southern Italy at the first available opportunity.
The issue of chronic staff shortages in the Prosecutor’s Offices, while not a topic often discussed in public referendums on judicial career separation, remains a critical challenge for the functioning of the justice system.
Source: milano.corriere.it
