Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of the chief judge of the Vatican City court, who reached the nominal retirement age for the position earlier this year.
Giuseppe Pignatone will conclude his time in office effective December 31, the Vatican announced Wednesday, with the pope accepting his resignation the previous day while “thanking him for his service over the years.”
Pignatone’s term in office included leading the court as it conducted the multi-year trial into the Vatican Secretariat of State’s financial crimes scandal which concluded one year ago, delivering convictions against nine individuals including Cardinal Angelo Becciu.
He turned 75 in May of this year, at which point he was required by law to submit his resignation to Pope Francis.
However, at the time he reached the age of retirement, Pignatone’s court had still not issued its full judicial rationale for its convictions in the multi-year trial into the Vatican Secretariat of State’s financial crimes scandal which delivered convictions against nine individuals including Cardinal Angelo Becciu — that final verdict that was only released Oct. 29 of this year. That case is currently being heard at appeal.
Earlier this year, Pope Francis issued a number of changes to Vatican City law governing courts and court officials.
In April, the pope established a new, clear line of succession for leading the city state’s judiciary, clearly looking ahead to Pignatone’s likely retirement, making permanent the office of an adjunct president of the court who automatically assumes the chief judgeship when the role falls vacant, as it now has.
Prior to fixing the role in Vatican law, Francis had already nominated judge Venerando Marano to the position in June last year, with the appointment taking effect from Jan. 1 of this year.
Pignatone has served as a judge in Vatican City since 2019, before which he worked as one of Italy’s most prominent anti-mafia public prosecutors in Rome and Sicily. In that capacity, he often faced off against Alessandro Diddi, a prominent defence lawyer who went on to become the Vatican’s chief prosecutor before Pignatone’s court, with the two most notably clashing in Italy’s signature mafia capitale case.
Pignatone was also the lead judge in the wrongful dismissal lawsuit brought in 2022 by Libero Milone, the former auditor general of the Vatican. Pignatone dismissed the suit in January of this year.
That case is also being heard at appeal.
More recently, the judge found himself at the center of scandal, having to declare his innocence after being named in a corruption probe by Italian authorities in Sicily.
The judge was named in an investigation by prosecutors in Caltanissetta, Sicily, in connection with an alleged conspiracy to drop and cover up a mafia-related investigation in the early 1990s, local authorities announced July 31.
The Vatican never made a statement on the news that its top judge is under criminal investigation.
In August, Pignatone exercised his right not to answer questions before the court in the case, which concerns the circumstances around the shutting down and suppression of a 1992 investigation into alleged corruption in the awarding of local government procurement contracts, with public officials suspected of steering state business to mafia-linked or owned businesses.
Pignatone did, however, give a statement to the press at the time, saying he “declared my innocence on the potential charge of aggravated aiding and abetting,” and was “committed to contributing, within the limits of my abilities, towards investigative efforts of the state attorney's office of Caltanissetta.”
As a retired judge of Vatican City, under legal reforms passed by Pope Francis earlier this year, he is entitled to receive an ordinary Vatican civil service pension, even though he may already be eligible for other such pensions in Italy.
However, Francis acknowledged last month that “the latest in-depth analyses carried out by independent experts indicates a serious prospective imbalance of the fund.”
“In concrete terms, this means that the current system is not able to guarantee in the medium term the fulfillment of the pension obligation for future generations.”
