Turning point for the assistants of the Ars: Palermo Court orders the inclusion of Maria Mirella Moscarelli in the ranking

A ruling that could profoundly impact the position of numerous parliamentary assistants of the Sicilian Regional Assembly. The Palermo Court, with a decision pronounced on March 12, 2026 by the labor judge, recognized the right of Maria Mirella Moscarelli to be included in the ranking of personnel available to the deputies of the ARS.

The decision comes at the end of a dispute initiated by the worker and supported by lawyers Giovanni Puntarello, partner at the Legalit Avvocati firm, and Alessandro Maria Miliziano, associate at the legal office, who assisted the appellant in the case against the Sicilian Regional Assembly.

The case concerns the system of inclusion in the list of personnel from which regional deputies can draw to hire their parliamentary assistants. The young Maria Mirella Moscarelli had worked for several years in the private secretariat of the honorable Alfio Papale, a member of the Presidency Secretariat of the Sicilian Regional Assembly.

Despite her work, her application for inclusion in the list provided for by Article 7 of Regional Law No. 1 of 2014 had been rejected by the Sicilian Regional Assembly. The reason for the denial was related to the nature of her employment relationship: Moscarelli was not formally employed on a permanent basis, but had worked through a series of fixed-term contracts renewed over time.

It was precisely on this point that the defensive strategy of lawyer Giovanni Puntarello focused, invoking the application of national regulations on fixed-term work, particularly the so-called “dignity decree”, which establishes strict limits on the renewal of fixed-term contracts.

According to the argument put forward by lawyer Giovanni Puntarello before the Court, the succession of contract renewals should have automatically determined the transformation of the relationship into a permanent contract, with the consequent recognition of the requirements necessary for inclusion in the ARS ranking.

A reconstruction that has been challenged by the Sicilian Regional Assembly and the State District Attorney's Office, which argued that the so-called dignity decree could not be applied to the Assembly, as it is a public administration.

This position was opposed by the lawyers. Attorney Giovanni Puntarello, supported by attorney Alessandro Maria Miliziano, highlighted that the employment relationships established with the special secretariats of the members of the Presidency Council of the Sicilian Regional Assembly have a private and fiduciary nature, and do not constitute public employment relationships in the strict sense. For this reason, according to the defense, the ordinary regulations on fixed-term work should apply, including those provided for by the dignity decree.

The Palermo Court accepted this position. The labor judge recognized that the repeated fixed-term contracts had resulted in the transformation of the relationship into a permanent contract starting from January 9, 2020. Consequently, the worker met the requirement set by the regional law to be included in the list of personnel available to the parliamentary groups and the secretariats of the bodies of the Ars.

For this reason, the Court declared the note with which the Sicilian Regional Assembly rejected Moscarelli's request to be illegitimate and ordered the administration to include her in the ranking published on the institutional website of the ARS in October 2022.

The inclusion in the list has a very significant concrete effect: individuals listed in the ranking can be hired by regional deputies to carry out parliamentary assistance activities using the financial resources made available directly by the Assembly. This means that parliamentarians can rely on their collaboration without any personal financial burden, as the cost of personnel is borne by the Ars.

The ruling obtained by lawyers Giovanni Puntarello and Alessandro Maria Miliziano could now have repercussions on other similar cases. Over the years, in fact, several parliamentary collaborators have been excluded from the list precisely due to the lack of formalization of a permanent contract, despite having worked for long periods through successive renewals.

The decision of the Palermo Court thus opens a new scenario for many of these workers and represents a significant precedent in the disputes concerning the personnel of the parliamentary secretariats of the Sicilian Regional Assembly.