Winning a Supreme Court Appeal

In Italy, the Supreme Court of Cassation is the apex of ordinary jurisdiction; among the main functions attributed to it by the Fundamental Law on the Judiciary of January 30, 1941, No. 12 (Article 65) is that of ensuring "exact observance and uniform interpretation of the law, the unity of objective national law, and respect for the limits of the various jurisdictions.".

One of the fundamental characteristics of its essentially nomophylactic and unifying mission, aimed at ensuring certainty in the interpretation of the law (in addition to issuing third-instance judgments), is that, in principle, the provisions in force do not allow the Court of Cassation to know the facts of a case unless they emerge from documents already acquired in the proceedings in the pre-trial phases and only to the extent that it is necessary to know them to evaluate the remedies that the law allows to be used to justify an appeal to the Court itself.

The appeal to the Supreme Court

The appeal to the Supreme Court of Cassation can be presented against the provisions issued by the ordinary judges in the appeal level or in the single level: the reasons given to support the appeal can be, in civil matters, the violation of material rights (errors in iudicando) or procedural (errors in procedendo), the defects in the reasoning (absence, insufficiency or contradiction) of the contested sentence; or, again, the reasons relating to jurisdiction. A similar regime is foreseen for the appeal to the Supreme Court in criminal matters.

When the Court detects one of the above-mentioned defects, it has the power-duty not only to quash the decision of the lower court, but also to state the principle of law that the contested provision must comply with this principle: a principle that the referring judge must also adhere to when re-examining the facts of the case. The principles established by the Court of Cassation, however, are not generally binding on judges when they must decide other cases, for which the Supreme Court's decision can still be considered an influential precedent. In reality, judges of lower courts comply with the decisions of the Court of Cassation in the majority of cases.
No special permission is required to file an appeal with the Supreme Court.

According to the’Article 111 of the Constitution every citizenor can appeal to the Court of Cassation for violation of the law against any provision of the judicial authority, without having to appeal in civil or criminal matters, or against any provision that limits the personal freedom.