Referendum in Italy
Meloni faces failure with judicial reform
Updated March 23, 2026 – 3:56 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
Giorgia Meloni wants to fundamentally reform her country’s justice system. The Prime Minister has probably failed with her plan.
Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is facing failure with her plans for judicial reform. According to an initial projection by the broadcaster Rai, 53.1 percent of voters spoke against it in a referendum. 46.9 percent voted for the plan of the right-wing three-party coalition.
The judicial reform is a central project of the right-wing Meloni government and includes changes to several articles of the Italian constitution. Proponents see this as a crucial step towards making judges and prosecutors independent of the influence of political movements and making the judiciary more efficient as a whole. On the contrary, opponents accuse the Meloni government of wanting to increase its influence over the judiciary.
A key point of the project is the strict separation of the careers of judges and prosecutors. In particular, their self-administration should be restricted; instead, separate committees should decide on the appointments, promotions and transfers of judges and public prosecutors in the future. The members of these committees should partly be determined by lot; Disciplinary proceedings should be carried out by a separate court.
The government camp and individual opposition politicians are in favor of the reform. The majority of the Italian opposition is against the reform. Opponents warn of an interference with the independence of the judiciary as a whole. They argue that the public prosecutor’s office in particular could be subject to greater political influence in the future, while structural problems such as long proceedings and overcrowded prisons remain unresolved.
Approval of the reform would be a significant political victory for the government in office since autumn 2022, rejection would be a serious setback. Since there is no minimum turnout for constitutional referendums in Italy, the result is valid in any case.
