Inadmissibility decisions concerning Italy
The Court declared the applications in the cases of Prinari v. Italy, Cotena v. Italy, Rotolo v. Italy and Gelsomino v. Italy inadmissible.
The cases concerned the rejection of the applicants’ separate applications to the Italian authorities for a reduction in their life sentences to 30 years’ imprisonment within proceedings for the review of the enforcement order relating to their sentences (incidente di esecuzione).
The Court found that the applicants had attempted to use reviews of enforcement orders to have their sentences changed by the Italian courts. They had incorrectly believed that the six-month timelimit had run from the decisions in that regard. The Court ruled that as that had been an ineffective remedy, earlier decisions in their cases before other courts had to be considered the “final” ones. Given that the applications had been lodged more than six months after these decisions, the Court held that they had been lodged out of time.