27 Sep appeal judgment

The appeal judgment in the Italian criminal trial constitutes one of the most relevant joints of the appeal system e, more generally, of the guarantee principle that permeates the entire procedural system, Since it allows a full review of the judicial affair by a different and higher jurisdictional body than the one that issued the first instance sentence, ensuring the accused the possibility of asserting any errors in fact or in law made by the previous judge and the public prosecutor to obtain a renewed assessment if he deems the decision unjust or erroneous; this means of appealing, provided for by the articles 593 and following of the criminal procedure code, is qualified as a free criticism remedy, in the sense that the Court of Appeal is not bound to the defects deduced from the party, but it can re -evaluate the entire contested sentence, except for the limits placed by the devolutionary principle and from the specific complaints contained in the grounds of appeal, which must be drawn up with punctuality and precision, under penalty of inadmissibility, In order to circumscribe the Thema decidendum and guarantee the effectiveness of the contradictory; The second instance judgment has peculiar characteristics with respect to the first instance, since it is not a new process in the strict sense, but of a critical revision of the decision, even if the Court has the power to renew the dabattal education when it deems it necessary to acquire or review evidentiary elements, in particular in the case of decisive declaration evidence already evaluated by the first judge, As required by the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Cassation, who underlined the need to guarantee the direct perception of the proof by the judge who decides on the merits; The appeal can be proposed by the accused, by his defender, by the public prosecutor e, for the only civil statues, on the civil party, by the civil manager and civilly obliged for the pecuniary penalty, therefore configuring itself as a tool available to all procedural subjects directly engraved by the effects of the decision; The object of the appeal judgment can be extremely wide, Including issues relating to criminal liability, to the legal qualification of the fact, to the commissioning of the sentence, to aggravating or mitigating circumstances, as well as to the civil statutes deriving from the crime, With the consequence that the Court can fully confirm the contested sentence, Reform it in a favorable or unfavorable sense to the accused, Cancel and postpone the documents to another judge, or decide directly on the merits, Without prejudice to the limit of the ban on reformatio in Peius, which prevents the Court from aggravating the accused's position when only the latter, and not the public prosecutor, has proposed appeal; from a procedural point of view, The appeal process takes place in simplified ways compared to the first degree, but not for this less guarantees, Since the defender's necessary participation is envisaged, The possibility of submitting memories and investigation requests, the oral discussion and the collegial decision, All elements that ensure the compliance of the second instance judgment on the principles of the right trial and equality of weapons; The appeal judgment also assumes an essential role in the balance between the needs of procedural efficiency and the protection of fundamental rights, since on the one hand it allows you to correct errors and guarantee a second evaluation, but on the other hand it avoids the uncontrolled proliferation of degrees of judgment that could compromise the reasonable duration of the process; In this perspective, The legislative reforms that have followed in recent years aimed at rationalizing access to the appeal, introducing limits to the demonstration and enhancing the filter of the inadmissibility, With the aim of avoiding an overload of the appeal courts and to concentrate the judgment on cases where there is an effective interest of the parties and a concrete possibility of reforming the sentence; in the end, The sentence issued capable of appeal does not exhaust the guarantees system, as it can be challenged with an appeal by cassation, which, however, does not constitute a third degree of merit, but a judgment of legitimacy aimed exclusively at verifying compliance with the law and constitutional and supranational principles, so that the appeal is like the central and essential moment in which the review function is concentrated on the merits, performing a decisive function in the protection of personal freedom, in the correction of judicial errors and in the legitimacy of the criminal trial as a fair and just tool to ascertain criminal liability.