
The Head of State signs the provision but criticizes the extension of non-punishment to gross negligence, negligence and imprudence
The President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella has promulgated the law on civil protection, however raising doubts in a letter to the presidents of the Chambers and to Prime Minister Meloni regarding the broad exemption on fault-based liability.
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The Senate passed the law on August 4 and the House on October 21. A government amendment changed the cause of non-punishment.
The Head of State Sergio Mattarella promulgated the law on civil protection, approved by the Senate on 4 August and by the Chamber on 21 October, but accompanied the signature with a letter to the presidents of the Senate and Chamber, Ignazio La Russa and Lorenzo Fontana, and to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
The green light comes, he writes, "in consideration of the overall scope of the provision", which regulates the economic and legal treatment of staff. The findings instead concern the cause of non-punishment, which owes its current form to a Government amendment approved in July in the Constitutional Affairs Committee.
In the bill passed by the Council of Ministers on 28 October 2025, article 42-ter to be included in the Civil Protection Code concerned only homicide and negligent personal injury, and punishment was excluded only for incompetence.
With the amendment, non-punishment now covers all negligent crimes committed in civil protection activities, if the guidelines or, in their absence, good practices have been respected, provided they are "adequate to the specificities of the concrete case".
This is where the letter focuses. For the Quirinale this is "a very broad exception to general liability due to negligence", because, "unlike what happens in other professional fields", it extends to gross negligence and includes negligence and imprudence.
The closest comparison is the Gelli-Bianco law on healthcare liability. The dossier of the Research Services of the Chamber and Senate recognized "elements of analogy", but recalled that there, according to the Court of Cassation, non-punishability operates "exclusively in cases of incompetence".
The amendment also rewrote the audience, divided into three categories: the authorities (premier, regional presidents and mayors), the operators, including the prefects who coordinate the rescue efforts, and the volunteers registered in the national list.
When non-punishment is not triggered, the volunteer is liable "exclusively for gross negligence" in all activities. Authorities and operators have the same protection only in urgent emergency management interventions. It is the second limitation on which Mattarella focuses: in some cases, he observes, no one is liable for slight negligence.

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