Less conflict, more agreements. The first year of operation of the Cartabia civil justice reform (legislative decree 149/2022, applicable, for the largest part, to proceedings initiated since March 1, 2023), has helped to push the search for consensual solutions to family crises.

“Our firm has long prioritized agreements, but in recent months we have seen this need growing even in customers who explicitly ask us to help them find a solution,” observes Lorenza Cracco, who founded the firm in Padua in 1982 CRCLEX, today with offices also in Milan and Turin. “The reform has helped to increase agreements: contentious separations have very stringent and prescriptive procedural rules, with demanding documentary productions and a pressing succession of memoirs. In many cases, the parties were able to respond more adequately to a new family organization, planning every contribution detail in an agreed manner. This has also increased the number of cases of transformation of conflictual separations into consensual ones.” In favor of the agreement, Cracco reasons, was the obligation to bring before the judge, immediately, all the documents necessary to clarify the economic situation of the former to determine the regulations on economic contributions: “This is an important innovation, which translates into a deterrent to going to court, given that if the information is incomplete the judge will evaluate the behavior in the decision.” As for assisted negotiation agreements, Cracco notes, “they are used less than in the past because with the written negotiation the parties no longer have to appear at the hearing and the agreement is defined first, in the lawyer's office. On the contrary, the reform has given the opportunity to file together with the same appeal the application for separation and that for divorce: a simplification used mainly by those who have non-complex situations, which do not require a reassessment during a divorce. This chance is a disincentive for assisted negotiation, which does not contemplate it.” In addition, “prevention is increasing: we receive requests for prenuptial advice or for drafting cohabitation contracts. This also helps to reduce future conflict.”

“The procedural changes of the reform have had the effect of reducing decision-making times - intervenes Giorgia Persoglia, owner of the Persoglia Law Firm in Trieste -: the new deadlines set for producing the documents allow the judge to have, already at the first hearing, all the elements to frame the situation. The parties are encouraged to seek an agreement immediately and this benefits the most fragile and minors.” More generally, according to Persoglia, “all the reform goes in the direction of protecting the weakest parties: in conflictual situations, the special curator of the child is appointed, who is sometimes requested by the parents themselves; and family mediation is used more frequently than in the past, which can help to reach an agreement. The necessary outcome of the reform is the Single Court, which will make it possible to eliminate the dichotomy between juvenile court and ordinary court, always with a view to pursuing the interests of minors”. Furthermore, “to detonate conflict - adds Persoglia - the equal placement of children, which parents are increasingly asking for, also contributes to the detonation of conflict. In general, I think it is essential, for those who deal with family law, to shift the focus from economic aspects to those of relationship. The reform leads precisely in this direction.”

by Valentina Maglione

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