Tensions Within the Vatican Judiciary

Libero Milone, former president of Deloitte Italy, claims to have been the victim of  an “unfair dismissal” and that his resignation was forced at the cost of “psychological violence” suffered by him and his deputy during interrogations carried out by the Vatican gendarmerie.

The Holy See's lawyers, for their part, believed that since it was the Pope who had hired the former reviser general and who had fired him, the court therefore had no power to judge the matter.

Therefore, the micro-state's justice system ruled that its former employee was wrong. However, he is not giving up and has just confirmed to the press his intention to appeal the court's decision. Once the appeal is filed, the case will be handed over to the Vatican appeals court, which consists of a president and three other judges, similar to the court that heard the original case.

It is unclear how long the process will take before a final verdict is reached, but it will run alongside Cardinal Angelo Maria Becciu's appeal, the review of which is expected to last more than a year.

For Vaticanist Andrea Gagliarducci, these latest developments could contribute to further weakening the Vatican judicial system, already undermined by the trial of the century which took place from July 2021 to December 2023.

It is a trial during which Pope Francis modified the Vatican's penal law several times, through rescripts signed by his hand. It was a way of filling certain normative voids piecemeal, according to the promoter of justice Alessandro Diddi. It was a desire to manipulate the investigation by changing the rules of the game, according to Cardinal Becciu's defenders.

In any case, the appeal trials which are taking shape could not be without consequences: that of a loss of credibility of the judicial system. Andrea Gagliarducci underlines in this regard what he sees as the ambiguous role played by Giuseppe Pignatone, the president of the court, who decided during the trial at first instance to redefine several counts with a new approach which seemed to disavow the work of the investigators.

For the record, one of the last Vatican officials to appeal a Vatican court decision was Angelo Caloia, a former director of the Vatican Bank, who was convicted of corruption and embezzlement in 2021 and sentenced to eight years in prison. The micro-state's court of appeals confirmed his conviction in June 2022.