Referendum, Carlo Nordio's "mea culpa": "I take political responsibility." Now a new site for reforms.

In the wake of the triumph of the No vote in the constitutional referendum, Carlo Nordio is not looking for shortcuts. The consultation has confirmed a clear victory for the “No” front, standing at 54%, with an unusually high turnout, close to 59%.

In light of this unequivocal verdict, the Minister of Justice intervened on Start on Sky TG24 and made clear statements: “The reform bears my name, and I take political responsibility for it”. The Minister of Justice acknowledged, with a cool head, evident “defects in setup and communication” in the recently concluded campaign.

The project, rejected at the polls, revolved around the separation of careers between judges and prosecutors, the splitting of the Superior Council of the Judiciary, and the establishment of a High Disciplinary Court. Nordio admits the inability to illustrate without slogans such a complex constitutional design to a heterogeneous electorate.

In public debate, in fact, the reform has been improperly associated with the promise of faster trials and a more efficient justice system. The Minister himself, on several occasions, had candidly clarified that the separation of careers does not in itself speed up proceedings, but represents an “ordering principle” aimed at strengthening perceived impartiality and limiting the cultural mixing between judging and prosecuting functions.

This gap between created expectations and real objectives has led many voters to wonder how their experience in court would improve, a question that remained unanswered convincingly. While the constitutional framework has been rejected, the urgent interventions and levers of judicial policy that do not require a revision of the Constitution remain intact. The agenda set by the Minister of Justice focuses on concrete and “citizen-proof” measures: completing competitions for hiring in the judiciary, investing in the digitization of documents and hearings, and finding a more precise and shared balance on the issue of wiretaps.