On the review of the system of application of security measures against offending psychiatric patients in the Italian system. Regarding the judgment of the Italian Constitutional Court n. 22 of 2022

Abstract

On the way to overcoming the judicial psychiatric hospitals, started with the art. 3-ter of the decree-law of 22 December 2011, n. 211, is still characterized by contradictions and critical issues, which concern, first of all, the current system of assigning psychiatric patients who are offenders to the Residences for the execution of the safety measures (R.E.M.S.) introduced since 2015 on the national territory. With sentence no. 22 of 2022, the Constitutional Court, while declaring inadmissible the questions raised by the judge for the preliminary investigations of the Court of Tivoli, segunevertheless issued an indispensable warning so that solutions of a structural nature are immediately identified for the various legal-organisational aspects concerning the matter. This contribution intends to address the merits of the articulated questions also posed by the Consulta, starting from an examination of the causes that have determined the current stalemate in the system of application of detention security measures against non-chargeable persons, up to analyzing for the lights and shadows of the new lines of the agreement of the State-Regions Conference for the management of patients with safety measures of 30 November 2022.