The Court of Auditors goes into direct confrontation with the government and calls on the Constitutional Court. On July 15, Alfredo Mantovano, undersecretary of Palazzo Chigi, sent a letter (the second) to the president of the Court, Guido Carlino, regarding the appointments of ten section presidents decided in defiance of the new law. A harsher letter than the previous one, to which the council of the presidency of the accounting judiciary reacted yesterday, convening a Plenum for today. On the agenda is the elevation of the conflict of attribution between the Court of Auditors and the government before the Constitutional Court.
On February 24 and 25, the council of the presidency of the Court (the “CSM” of the accounting judges) had resolved, in a non-public meeting, the promotion of ten magistrates to the position of section president. A decision that entails an additional burden on taxpayers averaging about 52,000 euros per year for each promoted individual. The call to cover nine of those positions was issued on January 27: five days after the entry into force of law 1 of 2026, which delegates the government to reorganize the Court of Auditors and provides for a reduction of top positions. In those promotion resolutions, the new law, although already enacted, is never mentioned. The tenth promoted was added because, in the vote for the position of regional prosecutor for Liguria, two candidates obtained the same score. The problem was solved by promoting both: one assigned to the Ligurian office, the other – who is and will remain out of role – placed in a surplus position.
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THE FIRST LETTER
On June 5, Mantovano, by resolution of the council of ministers, wrote a first letter to Carlino. The Court, the undersecretary emphasized, could not ignore that the law provided for a reduction of top positions, since “its authoritative representatives sit at the technical table tasked with drafting the related legislative decree scheme.” It would have been reasonable to expect “caution” in managerial appointments. So, why was there no recourse to temporary solutions instead of permanent promotions? Was the urgency real? On June 17, the council of the presidency of the Court responded by majority, arguing that the promotions were an obligation imposed by the law in force and that the delegation not yet exercised was not binding. The council of ministers on July 14 examined Carlino’s note, judging it, essentially, a non-response, evasive on the essential issue. Mantovano then wrote the second letter to the “Most Illustrious President” of the Court of Auditors. In just over a page, the undersecretary dismantles the argument that the promotions would be a “procedural obligation.” He notes that precisely “the presence, for years, of vacant positions” in the accounting judiciary staff “presupposes a margin of discretionary appreciation by the Council of the Presidency in decisions concerning recruitment procedures and advancement to higher qualifications.” Therefore, “to better clarify” what was asked in June, the council of ministers, through Mantovano, asks to know “why the Council of the Presidency of the Court limited itself to the formal fact of the non-implementation” of the criterion of reducing top positions “and did not intend in any way to consider such criterion” in its decisions.
“More in detail,” it asks whether the leadership of the Court of Auditors has “in some way balanced the interest in filling vacant positions, through the various institutes allowed by current legislation, with the opportunity not to hinder, through the promotions in question, the achievement of the objective desired by the legislator of containing the top or sub-top figures of the Court.” In plain words: did you care at all about the law passed by parliament or not?
SO IT CAN BE DONE
One more detail: Mantovano notes “with favor” that on June 19, a few days after Carlino’s note, the coverage of the position of president of the control section for Molise was resolved through the interim assumption of functions by the president of the section for Puglia. This is the alternative solution to promotions that the government had suggested in the first letter and that the Court had argued was not feasible. So it can be done. The letter sent from Palazzo Chigi alarmed the Court of Auditors. Its council of presidency, which had already scheduled the next session after the summer, hastily convened an extraordinary meeting. The proposal to raise the conflict of attribution passed yesterday in committee, with three votes in favor and one against. One of the three votes is that of the Attorney General of the Court of Auditors, Pio Silvestri, who participates in drafting the implementing decrees of the reform. Today the Plenum is called to deliberate. The signal is clear: the Court does not intend to respond on the merits to the government and is seeking another path.
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