Accused of occupying land, San Giovanni Gemini Municipality acquitted on appeal

Last Updated: December 9, 2023

Favara, droga, maltrattamenti e violenze sessuali nella comunità per disabili: chiesto il giudizio per 14

The civil section of the Court of Appeal of Palermo has accepted the appeal of the Municipality of San Giovanni Gemini and annulled the first-instance judgment of the Agrigento court, which had sentenced the local authority to pay one million eight hundred thousand euros for damages due to occupation and irreversible transformation of land. The story began in 1973 when it was decided to build a road connecting the ring road to via Papini (now via Nicolò Carta) and occupy some land for the project. Forty years later, two women from San Giovanni Gemini claimed to be the owners of one of the occupied plots and asked the Agrigento court to condemn the local authority and compensate them for illegal occupation. The Municipality, defended by lawyer Girolamo Rubino, was initially sentenced to compensate the women with one million eight hundred thousand euros. The Court of Appeal of Palermo, considering the lawyer’s arguments to be well-founded, declared the lack of jurisdiction of the ordinary judge and the consequent jurisdiction of the administrative judge, annulling the conviction sentence.