Almasri, the Constitutional Court obliges the Tribunal of Ministers to provide reasoning regarding Bartolozzi

The Constitutional Court, with judgment no. 190/2026, filed in the registry on November 6, 2026, and published in the Official Gazette of the Italian Republic, 1st Special Series, no. 45 of November 11, 2026, has resolved the conflict of attribution between State powers promoted by the Chamber of Deputies. The judges established that it was not the prerogative of the Panel for Ministerial Crimes at the Ordinary Court of Rome to omit the reasons why it did not find a possible liability of Giusi Bartolozzi, chief of staff to the Minister of Justice, for complicity in the crimes attributed to the minister, and that it was not the prerogative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Rome to fail to communicate this determination to the Chamber. Instead, it was the prerogative of the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate and bring criminal action against Bartolozzi herself for providing false information to the public prosecutor without the prior authorization of the Chamber.

The conflict concerns the criminal proceedings registered against the Minister of Justice Carlo Nordio, the Minister of the Interior Matteo Piantedosi, and the Undersecretary of State to the Presidency of the Council Alfredo Mantovano, for refusal to perform official duties (art. 328 criminal code), aiding and abetting (art. 378 criminal code) and, for Piantedosi and Mantovano only, embezzlement (art. 314 criminal code), in relation to the release and repatriation of the Libyan citizen Osama Almasri. The appeal was notified on July 20, 2026, and filed on July 28, 2026, registered as no. 3 in the 2026 register of conflicts between State powers; admissibility was declared by ordinance no. 122 of 2026. The decision was reached at the public hearing of October 6, 2026, with Giovanni Amoroso as president and Francesco Viganò and Luca Antonini as reporting judges.

The stages of the Almasri case

• January 18, 2025: the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court issues an arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity and requests the provisional arrest from Italy.
• January 19, 2025: the Squadra Mobile-DIGOS of Turin carries out the arrest.
• January 20-21, 2025: the Prosecutor General at the Court of Appeal of Rome receives no request from the Minister of Justice and the Court of Appeal orders the release; repatriation takes place via a flight of the Compagnia Aeronautica Italiana (CAI) spa.
• March 31, 2025: Bartolozzi is heard by the Panel as a person informed of the facts.
• July 7, 2025: the Prosecutor’s Office, in the opinion pursuant to art. 8 of constitutional law no. 1 of 1989, frames her behavior as complicity in the minister’s crimes or as a crime under art. 371-bis of the penal code.
• August 5, 2025: the Panel requests authorization to proceed from the Chamber; on August 7, 2025, the Prosecutor’s Office enters Bartolozzi into the register of suspects for providing false information.
• October 9 and 16, 2025: the Assembly denies authorization by an absolute majority and the Panel orders the dismissal of the case.

The political path of the appeal

The parliamentary initiative arose from the request on October 13, 2025, by group leaders Bignami, Molinari, Barelli, and Lupi. Based on the report of the Committee for Authorizations of November 4, 2025, the President’s Office proposed the conflict on April 1, 2026, and the Assembly deliberated on April 14, 2026.

What changes regarding the guarantees

The Court has linked the obligation of transparency to the principle of loyal cooperation, extending the meaning of “dismissal” provided for by art. 8, paragraph 4, of constitutional law no. 1 of 1989: when the Prosecutor’s Office has suggested the complicity of a close collaborator of the minister and the Panel has not accepted the thesis, the latter must explicitly state and communicate its reasons. The second ground, however, was rejected: the guarantees of art. 96 of the Constitution extend to those who are complicit in the ministerial crime, not to the perpetrators of crimes that are only functionally connected, and the Court excluded the self-referral of the issue regarding art. 4, paragraph 2, of law no. 219 of 1989, recalling judgments no. 241 of 2009 and no. 87 and 88 of 2012.

For readers, the point is twofold: the Tribunal of Ministers can no longer decide in silence on the position of the minister’s collaborators, while those who make statements remain exposed to charges of false information without the shield of parliamentary authorization, as already occurred in the case of Bartolozzi, who was the recipient of an indictment decree.

Official source: Official Gazette of the Italian Republic, 1st Special Series – Constitutional Court, no. 45 of November 11, 2026, judgment no. 190/2026 (filed on November 6, 2026).