A constitutional referendum concerning the reform of the judicial system was held in Italy on 22 and 23 March 2026. Its purpose was to revise Title II and Title IV of Part II of the Italian constitution. It was the fifth constitutional referendum in the history of the Italian Republic.
Voters were asked whether they approved a constitutional law, often called the "Nordio Reform" (Riforma Nordio) after Minister of Justice Carlo Nordio, that would amend the Italian Constitution in various aspects, most notably by proposing the constitutional separation of career paths between judges and public prosecutors, the splitting of the High Council of the Judiciary (CSM) into two distinct bodies, and the selection of CSM members by sortition rather than traditional election, as well as the establishment of a High Disciplinary Court to oversee disciplinary proceedings.
The government-initiated constitutional bill was approved by the Senate of the Republic on 30 October 2025. Since it did not reach the qualified two-thirds majority in each chamber of the Italian Parliament during the parliamentary approval process, pursuant to Article 138 of the Italian Constitution, the necessary signatures were soon collected to request a confirmatory constitutional referendum.
In a higher-than-expected turnout and in contrast to late polls showing a close election, after earlier polls had initially shown a significant advantage for those in favour, voters rejected the constitutional reform 53.2% to 46.8%. This was seen as a significant blow to the Meloni government. A quorum was not required for the referendum to be valid, and the Nordio law submitted to referendum would have been promulgated if confirmed by a majority of valid votes.
Background Details of the reform
The constitutional law, published on 30 October 2025 in the General Series No. 253 of the Official Gazette (Gazzetta Ufficiale), pursuant to Article 138 of the Constitution, was subject to a constitutional referendum as it was approved without the required two-thirds majority; on 16 July 2025, the Senate of the Republic had approved the eight articles of the reform. The constitutional reform, promoted by the government of Giorgia Meloni, would have introduced structural amendments to Articles 87, 102, 104, 105, 106, 107, and 110 of the Constitution of the Italian Republic, with the complete replacement of Articles 104 and 105, and would have required the constitutional separation of the careers of judicial magistrates (judges) and prosecutorial magistrates (public prosecutors), as well as the division of the CSM (Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura), the self-governing body of the Italian judiciary, into a Judicial CSM and a Prosecutorial CSM, each responsible for the career management of judicial and prosecutorial magistrates respectively.
The reform would have replaced the elective system for selecting CSM members with a random selection mechanism for the members of the two councils according to two different procedures: the "lay members" (one third of the total) would have been drawn by lot from a list of full university professors in legal disciplines and lawyers with at least fifteen years of professional practice, compiled by the Italian Parliament in joint session through election; the judicial members (two thirds of the total) would have been drawn by lot from among judicial magistrates and prosecutorial magistrates. A subsequent ordinary law would have been entrusted with determining the number of members of the two Councils and the detailed procedures for the drawing of lots.
The reform would have established the High Disciplinary Court (Alta Corte Disciplinare), which would have assumed disciplinary jurisdiction over ordinary magistrates, removing this function from the disciplinary section of the CSM that exercises it. The High Disciplinary Court was to be composed of fifteen members: three appointed by the president of Italy from among full university professors in legal disciplines and lawyers with at least twenty years of professional practice; three drawn by lot from a list of individuals with the same qualifications compiled by Parliament in joint session through election; six judicial magistrates and three prosecutorial magistrates drawn by lot from among members of the respective categories with at least twenty years of judicial service who perform or have performed functions at the Supreme Court of Cassation level. The High Disciplinary Court would have elected its president from among the judges appointed by the president of the Republic or drawn from the list compiled by Parliament. Appeals against decisions of the High Disciplinary Court, including on the merits, would have been admissible solely before the same High Disciplinary Court. A subsequent ordinary law would have been tasked with defining disciplinary offenses and corresponding sanctions, specifying the composition of the panels, regulating the disciplinary procedure, and establishing the rules necessary for the functioning of the High Disciplinary Court.
Text of the referendum question and signatures collection On 18 November 2025, the Central Referendum Office of the Supreme Court of Cassation, with an order notified on 19 November, admitted four requests for a constitutional referendum and set the question.
On 6 February 2026, the Supreme Court of Cassation granted the request for a question containing further details on the articles of the Italian Constitution affected by the reform being proposed in the referendum, initially promoted through a petition by a group of anonymous activists, called the Committee of 15 Citizens, represented by the lawyer Carlo Guglielmi, specialised in labour law and affiliated with the Unione Sindacale di Base (USB); the Committee of 15 Citizens had reached the 500,000 signatures necessary for the official filing of the request with the Supreme Court of Cassation on 15 January. Also on 6 February, the Central Referendum Office of the Supreme Court of Cassation, following the request for a referendum made by 546,343 voters, issued a special ordinance admitting the new text of the referendum question, which was then authorised by the Council of Ministers and by President Sergio Mattarella.
Debate Criticism
The reform and the referendum gave rise to a debate. Critics of the reform generally argued that it did not tackle the real issues of Italian justice, and would not make justice more efficient or just as claimed by some supporters, and that it was not democratic as it would eliminate the right of magistrates to freely elect their representatives in the CSM. They further argued that the public prosecutor would become a "super policeman" rather than an impartial one, who must seek the judicial truth and exculpatory evidence (Article 358 of the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure), that the separation of careers was irrelevant as they would account for less than one percent of all magistrates and that the Cartabia Reform already applied a separation of career, and that it would represent the end of the principle that "the law is the same for everyone" (la legge è uguale per tutti).
Critics, including among others Marco Travaglio, negatively compared the proposed reform to the United States justice system, arguing that the prosecutor, who is not "the prosecution's lawyer" but "the citizen's first defender" (a magistrate "with the obligation to seek the truth, just like a judge"), and that by transforming him into a separate figure, the new type of prosecutor under the reform "will inevitably be trained to be a policeman, that is, to accuse without considering whether someone is innocent or guilty", and that "our trial system risks becoming like that in the US, where the jury decides not who is guilty and who is innocent, but who has the best lawyer." Prominent judge and jurist Gustavo Zagrebelsky described the reform as "a retaliation by certain politicians against certain judiciaries to shift the constitutional balance in favour of the former's impunity and to the detriment of the latter's autonomy and independence".
Another argument, represented by the anti-mafia magistrate Raffaele Cantone, was that judges were at the same time accused of lacking independence from prosecutors and thus supporting the prosecution's arguments, and of excessive garantism when rejecting the prosecution, for example when releasing suspects. The latter criticism was shared by Gian Domenico Caiazza (chairman of a pro-reform committee) in reference to Matteo Salvini's public messaging in the aftermath of a clash between a minority of violent protesters and the police in Turin. Cantone also observed that criminal justice is on the one hand accused of lacking effectiveness, blaming magistrates for direct consequences for public safety, and on the other hand is accused of being too "invasive" with respect to politics. 2021 data showed that first-instance acquittals were equal to 50%, a percentage that rises to 69.7% for trials held following opposition to a criminal conviction by the prosecutor, with critics suggesting that sharing the same order does not impact or condition judicial decisions.
Critics, even among those in favour of the career separation, cited the lack of discussion between the government and the opposition in writing the reform, and those who voted against the reform in Parliament, such as Pier Ferdinando Casini, described it as "useless". Others also argued that the career separation was bad because the prosecutors should be trained as judges as in the Italian system the goal of both prosecutors and judges is to reach the judicial truth, with the prosecutors free to request the acquittal of the defendant; data showed that around 50% of the time judges acquit defendants in cases where the prosecutor had requested a trial. Additionally, the magistrate would no longer be able to appeal to the Supreme Court of Cassation against a decision by the High Disciplinary Court and would not be granted the three-degrees of judgement; instead the magistrate could only appeal the decision to the same High Disciplinary Court, albeit it would not be composed of the same judicial panel. Finally, critics cited the high cost of the reform when the same amount of spending could be used to hire more magistrates and digitalise the system, that no country use sortition and that it would be "a genuine humiliation of the democratic rules and constitutional principles on active and passive suffrage", citing the board of the Union of the Italian Criminal Chambers (UCPI) in 2019 but that was in favour of the 2025 reform, and also observed that there were unclear aspects due to the fact that part of the reform would require ordinary laws for its functioning, in particular the organisation of the new bodies.