After the ruling in the “Pandorogate” trial, a large group of journalists, commentators, bloggers, influencers and passers-by took on the role of jurist and practiced explaining why the Ferragni clan was wrong to define it as an acquittal and not an acquittal.

Condemned by history, not by justice

Quite a pedantic question of criminal procedure frankly, which caused a huge uproar when it ended up in the hands of well-known controversy professionals. In any case, Chiara Nazionale was not acquitted as she was never judged on the merits. The judge limited himself to saying that that trial should not be held because the conditions for proceeding, and therefore for deciding, were lacking. The accusation of fraud – which was simple, as the judge explained, and not as aggravated as the prosecutor’s office thought – has thus remained relegated to the folders of the Milan prosecutors, and all that remains is the multi-million dollar sentence from the Antitrust Authority for misleading advertising. And this is already no small thing for those who live on #adv and who now find it very difficult to find new customers, as is known. It can be said of her that she was not condemned by justice but by history.

The development of this story, however, lends itself well to discussing justice reforms now that there are a couple of months left until the referendum which will have to confirm or deny the introduction of the principle of separation of careers in the judiciary in Italy too. And the Ferragni affair, as we will see, ends up taking a completely different turn.

To better understand we need to go back to the famous reform of the civil and criminal trial conceived by the former Justice Minister Marta Cartabia during the Draghi government. Approved in 2022 as part of the commitments to obtain the Pnrr money, its rationale would be to reduce trial times by simplifying procedures and broadening the area of ​​crimes that can only be prosecuted if there is a complaint from one party. That is, if someone reports them.

Mandatory action

The general rule in our system is that of “mandatory” criminal action, which prevents the prosecutor’s offices from examining reports of crime. When prosecutors come across one – wherever it comes from – they must open a file and investigate, only to then ask for it to be dismissed if the conditions for requesting a trial are not met. In some cases, however, the investigation file can only be opened if the citizen reports a fact that could potentially be a crime. The scam, thanks to Cartabia, has ended up in the group of crimes for which the prosecutor cannot decide independently whether to investigate, unless it is “aggravated”. If it’s simple, he can’t take action until a complaint lands on his table. The meaning is clear: if the defrauded person does not want to bear even the slightest burden of reporting, the state must not waste money and time in restoring legality.

In the case of Ferragni, however, someone reported it: it was Codacons, a well-known consumer protection association which a couple of years ago triggered the fraud investigation which then became “aggravated” thanks to searches and investigations which involved the financial police and two magistrates, the deputy prosecutor Eugenio Fusco and the prosecutor Cristian Barilli. Aggravated by the “impaired defense” that consumers would have had when faced with the strong persuasion of the blonde influencer opposite in purchasing pandoros and Easter eggs linked to a donation.

At the end of 2024, however, Codacons withdrew its complaint after reaching a settlement agreement with Ferragni, but the machinery of justice had started in the meantime and the hypothesis of the weakened defense, which emerged during the investigations, it is good to keep in mind, kept the boat going for another year until the conclusion in mid-January 2026. Which allowed the influencer to say without hesitation, cards in hand, that this trial should never have started. Instead it started thanks to (or perhaps because of) Codacons, it occupied a pool of investigators for two years, burdening the state coffers and ended up with a judge who ruled that it should never have existed because whoever triggered it then independently decided to pull the plug once the navigation had started. Even if things, in reality, went very differently.

Waste of time for everyone?

What is the moral? That a reform created to simplify justice and avoid overloading it, handing over the switch of criminal action to the private citizen, ended up causing everyone to waste money and time without obtaining a decision. Unfortunately, the private individual who reported the complaint cannot be prevented from having second thoughts, but is it correct that only the community should pay the cost of his unquestionable decision? In a certain sense, a portion of criminal justice has been privatised, but these may be the paradoxical outcomes.

All that remains is to hope that the reform on the separation of magistrates’ careers, created to rebalance the power of prosecution and defense before the judge according to Minister Carlo Nordio, does not give rise to equally senseless results.