Life pension cuts: 1400 former MPs launch appeal

The appeal of about 1,400 former deputies has been launched, asking to review the 2018 resolution that cut the pensions of former parliamentarians , wanted by the then president of Montecitorio Roberto Fico . The first hearing took place on Wednesday before the Appeals Board, that is, the second-instance court within the Chamber, also composed of five deputies but which has a jurisdictional and not political role. The long hearing, which lasted all morning, saw the lawyers of the appellants parade, even with moments of tension, at the end of which the Appeals Board, chaired by Ylenia Lucaselli (FdI) reserved the time to pronounce the sentence.

The approximately 1,400 appellants are former MPs who are younger than the older ones in age, who in 2022 benefited from a ruling that effectively nullified the Fico resolution for them. The latter established that the life pension - at the suggestion of the then president of INPS Tito Boeri - should be calculated with contributory criteria: in practice, the allowance was recalculated on the basis of coefficients that included not only the amount of contributions paid, but also the years in which an allowance had been received. The older former MPs had their allowances suddenly cut overnight by up to 90%. In some cases, such as those of centenarian non-self-sufficient former MPs hospitalized in RSA, dramatic situations occurred.

In 2022, the internal court had ruled in favor of those who had appealed: the recalculation of the allowance started not from the moment in which the first one had been paid to the former parliamentarians, but from 2022 itself. The Jurisdiction Council and then the Appeals Board had adopted the constitutional principle of legitimate expectation. Last year, the appeal of the younger former parliamentarians had started, who appealed to the same principle, but the Jurisdiction Council ruled in their favor, probably because the cut in their life pension was proportionally less strong.

The 1400 did not want to give up and on Wednesday the Appellate Panel held a hearing, with Lucaselli as president, and in the presence of the other members ( Ingrid Bisa of the League, Pietro Pittalis of Fi, Marco Lacarra of the Pd and Vittoria Baldino of M5s) all lawyers. Several lawyers defended the appellants and the presence of one of them, Maurizio Paniz , caused an unprecedented moment of tension at the beginning. In a previous hearing Paniz had urged the members of the Panel to behave "like real judges" and not like political representatives, which had provoked Lucaselli's resentful response.