Codice Rosso (Law 69/2019) — Italy's Three-Day Fast-Track Prosecution for Gender-Based Violence

Italy's Law 69/2019, known as 'Codice Rosso' (Red Code), requires judicial police to report allegations of domestic and gender-based violence to prosecutors immediately, and requires prosecutors to interview the alleged victim within three days. The law also created new criminal offences — including forced marriage and the non-consensual distribution of intimate images ('revenge porn') — increased penalties for existing gender-based violence crimes, and made it easier for courts to issue precautionary measures such as restraining orders and eviction from the family home.

The mandatory deadline changed prosecutorial practice almost overnight. In the weeks after the law took effect in August 2019, prosecutors in Milan reported handling 30–40 new cases a day, with counterparts in Naples and Rome reporting around 30 and 25 a day respectively — volumes that some described as overwhelming existing office capacity, with on-duty prosecutors in large cities at times interviewing up to 20 complainants within 24 hours.

The Council of Europe's GREVIO expert group — the monitoring body for the Istanbul Convention — conducted Italy's first thematic evaluation in 2024, combining a state report, a nine-day country visit, and written contributions from Italian women's NGOs. The review confirms the fast-track mechanism is operating as designed and generating faster precautionary measures, while civil-society submissions raised open questions about complementary measures such as the hospital-based 'Codice Rosa' pathway. Six years on, Codice Rosso remains in force and is regularly cited internationally as a model fast-track procedure, alongside continuing debate over whether prosecutorial resources have kept pace with caseload.

Read the full analysis: https://csl.mpg.de/en/projects/gender-based-and-domestic-violence-in-italy