After two years of full application, the Cartabia Reform has become part of ordinary procedural law. It is no longer a novelty to be flagged: it is the framework within which investigations and trials move, and knowing it shapes the defence strategy.
Digital criminal proceedings
The digitisation of criminal proceedings is the heart of the reform: the activities take place on digital support, with their own rules. The impact for the defence is not marginal: the timely availability of filings and documents, the traceability of acquisitions and the discipline of digital notification are elements that affect the real timelines of the process.
This is where many practical disputes are measured: the question of the date on which documents become known, and therefore of defence deadlines, has become central again.
Substitutive penalties
The introduction of substitutive penalties changed the relationship between offence and sanction, adding a range of alternatives to imprisonment. The point deserves attention: the characterisation of the proceedings and the penalty that follows are no longer ancillary to liability, but affect whether a negotiated outcome is worth reaching.
The choice between alternative proceedings and ordinary proceedings is a decision to be assessed with the client in full, taking account of the evidential burden and the risk of conviction that accepting carries.
Reform of the appeal
Legislative Decree 150/2022, which introduced the appeal limited to the parties' interests, has been examined by the Constitutional Court, which addressed its effects in order no. 76 of 5 May 2026. This bears on the structure of the appeal trial and therefore on defence strategies on appeal.
In practical terms, the question links to the reduction of the proceedings and its effect: an appeal limited to the parties' interests cannot produce the reformatio in peius that characterises the ordinary appeal, and this is an element to know before choosing.
What remains on the table
The reform's journey is not over: the Constitutional Court continues to intervene on questions of constitutionality, and the Supreme Court has referred questions of law to the Grand Chamber. For practitioners, following this process is not a cultivated extra: it is how the law takes shape.
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