TAR Lazio – Rome, judgment of May 7, 2025, no. 8733. Pres. M.C. Quiligotti; Ext. L. Gizzi.
The Lazio – Rome Regional Administrative Court rejected the appeal brought by Companies operating in the medical-health sector, pertaining to the legitimacy of the institution of pay-back on medical devices provided for by the national legislature with Article 9b of Decree-Law No. 78 of 2015 (as amended by Decree-Law No. 115 of 2022) and the legitimacy of regional administrative procedures.
In particular, the Lazio-Rome Regional Administrative Court found the national legislation to be legitimate, even as amended by Decree Law No. 115 of 2022, which initiated the reparation plan, recalling the position already expressed on the point by the Constitutional Court in Judgment No. 140 of 2024. On this point, the Lazio Regional Administrative Court reiterated that the institution responds to a “solidaristic” need, does not introduce a retroactive tax, and is not on a collision course with the right to property, even at the supra-national level, nor with the personalistic principle.
Similarly, the TAR ha Lazio – Roma held that the procedural and provvedimentale process followed by the regions was legitimate, considering that they exercised not a free power, reserved to the legislature, but a power strictly bound to state regulatory provisions and ministerial guidelines. The Lazio – Rome Regional Administrative Court thus laid down the following principle of law, according to which, in the area of pay-back on medical devices, “the activity of the regions does not imply a spending of authoritative power, as it is reduced to a merely reconnaissance and summarizing activity,” as well as being an activity “entirely bound in its assumptions, content and even procedural modalities,” with the consequent legitimacy, in the case in point, of the same.
The TAR therefore rejected the opposing appeal as well as all the additional grounds proposed by the appellant, also pointing out, as far as it pertains to a different quantification of the pay-back, the lack of administrative jurisdiction, assuming relevance, as mentioned, a binding and non-discretionary administrative activity.