Order of the Court of Cassation, IV Labour Section, No. 4881 of 17 December 2014

With this order the Court of Cassation deferred to the Constitutional Court a question concerning the legitimacy of Article 1.777 of law No. 296/2006. This provision applies retroactively in pending proceedings concerning the pension of Italian nationals, who have worked in the Swiss Confederation. For this reason, it has seemed to the Court of Cassation inconsistent with Article 117.1 of Constitution in conjunction with Article 6 of the ECHR and Article 1 of the First Protocol to the ECHR, as interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights in its decision of 2011 on the case Maggio et al. v. Italy. It should be remembered that the Constitutional Court examined a similar issue concerning Article 1.777 in 2012, and ruled that it was unfounded (decision No. 264/2012). However, one further decision of the European Court intervened in 2014 (Stefanetti et al. v. Italy), ruling that the applicable provisions in Italian legislation has resulted in a disproportionate sacrifice of the claimants’ right to social security as compared with other public interests.