Reduction of civil justice times: Pnrr data to 2026

ROME – On 30 June 2026, the process of reducing justice times agreed with the European Union through the Pnrr ended. The targets set for civil trials were largely exceeded: the objective was to reduce the Disposition Time (hence DT), a measure of the average duration of trials, by 40%, but this was halved, going from 2512 days in 2019 to 1251 in the first half of 2026. There were clear improvements in all three levels of judgement: in the Courts the DT went from 556 to 291 days (with a reduction of 47.6%), in the Courts of Appeal from 654 to 352 days (-46.2%) and in the Court of Cassation from 1302 to 608 days (-53.3%). The aggregate data, however, does not allow us to understand whether these changes were uniform throughout Italy, the topic of this note, nor to identify the different components in the reduction of DT. In particular, as there is only one third level of judgment (Court of Cassation in Rome), the note specifically considers the performance of: - 140 ordinary courts, each of them belonging to one of the 26 districts of the Court of Appeal, which represent the first level of judgement; - 26 districts of the Court of Appeal (to which are added 3 detached sections), which deal with the second level of judgement.

Courts

In 2019, the DT was 643 days in the South (South and islands), 511 in the Center and 409 in the North. This large gap, which grew in 2020 due to the Pandemic, begins to decrease in 2021, with more visible improvements in the South, reaching an almost total convergence in the first half of 2026: 305 days in the North, 299 in the Center and 282 in the South. The recovery of the South between 2019 and 2026 is due both to a very strong drop in the number of pending cases and to an increase in cases defined. The South is the best area in both these dimensions. Even in the Center the improvement is due to both the decrease in pending cases and the increase in those settled, albeit with lower variations than those in the South. In the North, however, the improvement is only due to the increase in defined causes. Furthermore, a good part of the increase in cases defined in all areas (but especially in the South) occurred in the first half of 2026, an acceleration that was probably imposed by the need to respect the constraints of the Pnrr. It remains to be seen whether these rates can be maintained in the future, after the "final rush". However, the decline in pending cases was more gradual.

Furthermore, behind the convergence of the DT in 2026, very different numerators and denominators are hidden in the different areas: in the South both the number of slopes (561,926) and the number of definitions (726,255) remain high; these numbers are decidedly lower in the North (281,539 and 337,298 respectively) and even lower in the Center (207,281 and 253,042).

However, the fact that there has been a reduction in disparities is also confirmed by the drop in the standard deviation of the distribution of the DT among all the courts in Italy, an index that measures how dispersed a set of data is compared to their average. Here, however, the improvement compared to 2019 is entirely due to the aforementioned "final rush", which raises some concern.

Again compared to 2019, there was no reduction in dispersion in DTs within each area. There still remain very strong differences between the slowest and fastest courts within the three macro-regions. In the South the difference is 767 days (Vallo della Lucania – Locri). In the North it is 433 days (Trieste – Rovigo). In the Center it is 443 days (Rieti – Siena).

Court of Appeal

For the Courts of Appeal, in 2019 the Center had the highest DT (833 days), the South was in an intermediate position (675 days) and, as for the courts, the North had the lowest DT (465 days). In 2026 the three areas have become closer, with the Center and the South at similar levels and the North at lower levels, but still closer to the other areas.

These improvements are mainly due to the reduction over time, at a regular rate, in the number of pending sentences. The number of cases resolved, however, increased appreciably only in the Centre, while it remained substantially stable in the South and decreased in the North. All areas would have had a drop in cases resolved, had it not been for the final rush which also occurred in this case in the first six months of 2026.

Compared to the final levels, the similar values of the DT of the Center and the South hide very different realities: as for the courts, the South presents much greater slopes and definitions than the Center (and also the North).