Vitriolic back and forth between the council opposition and the lawyer appointed by the body Sabina Pizzuto on the issue of the Municipal Lawyer, an office established by the Extraordinary Commission in 2019 and recently abolished by resolution of the Scarcella council: a provision against which the Regional Administrative Court of Reggio Calabria however issued a suspension.
It was precisely this ordinance that had pushed the minority councillors La Rosa (“Participation and Democracy”), Pedullà (Movimento Socialopolare), Raso, Russo (“La Ginestra”), Schiavone (“Alleanza Gioiese”) and Stillitano (“Nuovi Orizzonti”) to express their satisfaction with the lawyer’s “reinstatement” in a joint note Sara Saffioti, municipal employee who had been transferred from the Lawyers Department to the Administrative sector, “with consequent restoration of the Legal office and condemnation of the Municipality to reimburse the legal expenses”.
In congratulating the official, «incredibly subjected to repeated disciplinary measures which have already been partly canceled by the Labor judge», the opposition councilors asked how the legal expenses would be justified in the budget and whether the legal tasks already assigned would be revoked, « given that the sums already ascertained, at present, amount to 61,759.40 euros, constituting fiscal damage for which the Council will have to assume responsibility”.
A statement to which the lawyer Pizzuto, the lawyer appointed by the Municipality in the proceedings, responded directly, considering the statements of the councilors “seriously detrimental to the honorability of the entire municipal council since the mayor has the right to assign tasks also to external lawyers”. Pizzuto specified «that the TAR did not accept the appellant’s requests, but only the precautionary requestsetting the hearing on the merits for the month of October. The court therefore did not criticize the administration’s choices on the merits.”
The minority’s response is ready: «This sentence, in the precautionary phase, strongly criticizes the institution and significantly reduces the criticisms. It is paradoxical that those who defend the Council’s right to outsource legal tasks are among the beneficiaries. Furthermore, those who today in the council sign for the abolition of the Legal Office, in the past received outsourced legal tasks precisely due to the absence of this office”. The TAR accepted the precautionary request, suspending the effectiveness of all the contested measures and setting the hearing on the merits for 8 October 2025.
