Anyone wishing to become a magistrate will have to submit to psycho-aptitude tests. This is what the Council of Ministers decided today, Tuesday March 26. The CSM (Higher Council of the Judicial Power) will designate university professors in psychological subjects – however on the recommendation of the National University Council, an independent body of the university – who will constitute the judgment commission. The psycho-aptitude interview will take place during the oral test. But those who pass the written test, before appearing before the commission for the oral examination, will receive written tests identified by the CSM, based on the model of those used by the police. The oral interview will, however, be conducted by the chairman of the examination committee and not by a psychologist, who will only be present as an aid. Finally, the examination commission, which evaluates collectively, will formulate the final judgment on all the tests. There will therefore be, explains the Minister of Justice Carlo Nordio, a double level of guarantee: the CSM which will regulate the tests in general and then the examination commission will decide.
The psycho-aptitude exams will apply for notices published from 2026, not for competitions already announced. And the competitions already announced will therefore continue with the current rules. “Regarding the placement of dismissed magistrates, there has been a lot of pressure to reduce this number: we have increased it to 180. The rule will, however, come into force in 2026 because in the current state it It would not be possible to impoverish certain bodies of magistrates who are essential,” underlines Nordio during the press conference according to the MDP. Regarding the tests “there is no invasion of the field by the government towards justice. There is no government interference. There is no vulnerability, no lese majeste,” explains the minister, who also cited the psychoaptitude tests already planned for those who work in the police, which in this case last up to three days.
For the Minister of Justice, in recent days “we have witnessed a controversy that I regret as a magistrate, such as when the competition of only honorary judges was criticized without reading the draft of a text still in progress. These are sterile controversies, hollow polemical abstractions, no one has ever thought of introducing periodic evaluations of the aptitude and psyche of magistrates”, declares Nordio, citing the favorable opinion of the Justice Commissions on the request for evaluation of psycho-aptitude tests.
One of the innovations introduced by the decree is the possibility of repeating the state exam four times, and no longer three as in the past. Minister Nordio's idea is to use the so-called “Minnesota model” in Italy for the tests of future magistrates, like the one he himself says he underwent: “There is nothing wrong if a person tries to understand how this is done and maybe he can try to correct himself. We are talking about people who have the lives of others in their hands, like doctors. »
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