The criminal law of the Vatican City State must be regarded as an autonomous segment of the Vatican State’s legal system and, at the same time, as an expression of the unique constitutional configuration of a State established, according to the function assigned to it by the Lateran Treaty, as an instrument to ensure the Holy See’s absolute and visible independence and sovereignty in the international arena. The new Fundamental Law of July 31, 2026 places this peculiarity at the apex of the legal system, explicitly distinguishing the State from the Roman Curia and other institutions of the Holy See, and attributing to the Supreme Pontiff, as Sovereign of the Vatican City State, the fullness of government power, including legislative, executive, and judicial power. In this perspective, Vatican criminal law cannot be interpreted through a mere transposition of categories from other state legal systems, nor can it be identified with canon law. Indeed, it belongs to the legal system of the Vatican City State, while canon law belongs to the legal system of the Church and finds its own autonomous foundation in the Code of Canon Law and other canonical sources. The distinction between the two planes is preliminary to any correct dogmatic reconstruction, as only by keeping the state legal system and the canonical system separate is it possible to understand the particular interaction that occurs in the Vatican system among the respective sources. The Law on the Sources of Law of October 1, 2008, establishes that the Vatican legal system recognizes the canon law as the primary normative source and the first interpretive reference criterion; it also identifies, as primary sources, the Fundamental Law and the laws promulgated for the State by the authorities holding legislative power, also providing for the alignment of the system with general international law and the obligations arising from treaties and agreements to which the Holy See is a party, within the limits established by the same discipline of sources. This results in a normative structure where criminal legality must be studied not in isolation, but within the hierarchy and system of sources of the Vatican legal system. The supplementary recourse to Italian legislation does not constitute a general automatic application of Italian law in the Vatican City State: the Law on Sources indeed provides that, in matters not covered by the primary sources, the laws and other normative acts issued in the Italian State may be observed in a supplementary manner after acceptance by the competent Vatican authority and provided they do not contradict the precepts of divine law, the general principles of canon law, the rules of the Lateran Pacts, and subsequent agreements and are concretely applicable to the realities of the State. The history of Vatican criminal law is therefore characterized by a normative reception phenomenon that must be distinguished from proper Vatican legislative production and which, over time, has been progressively accompanied by intense updating activities of the legal system. Particularly significant has been the evolution of legislation in criminal and economic-financial matters, through which the State has introduced and perfected tools aimed at the prevention and repression of contemporary forms of crime, also in connection with the international obligations assumed by the Holy See and the need to ensure effectiveness in international judicial cooperation. At the institutional level, the new Fundamental Law configures the judicial function as one exercised in the name of the Supreme Pontiff: for judging activities, it is attributed to the Court, the Court of Appeal, and the Court of Cassation, while the inquiring and prosecuting functions are entrusted to the Office of the Promoter of Justice. This articulation takes on particular importance in criminal matters because it structurally distinguishes the function of judicial determination from the investigative and prosecutorial function, inserting both into the same state judicial system. The position of the Promoter of Justice acquires, in this framework, particular systematic relevance: it is not merely the body tasked with supporting the prosecution in the trial, but the institutional subject to which the legal system entrusts the functions of investigation and criminal prosecution, within a judiciary structured according to Vatican legislation. The judging function, on the other hand, is articulated according to the principle of levels of jurisdiction, through the Court, the Court of Appeal, and the Court of Cassation, while maintaining the peculiar provision according to which the Supreme Pontiff may, in any civil or criminal case and at any state of the same, defer the investigation and decision to a particular instance to the exclusion of any other appeal. This provision has constitutional significance, showcasing the intrinsic nature of papal sovereignty and must be read in conjunction with the entire system of judicial attributions outlined by the Fundamental Law. The new fundamental text also explicitly addresses the purpose of criminal jurisdiction. Article 22 states that when applying the law, the judge shall be inspired by the principle of equity and work towards the restoration of justice; specifically in criminal cases, the penalty shall be imposed with the aim of rehabilitating the offender, reintegrating them, and restoring the violated juridical order. This provision has evident dogmatic relevance, as it places the criminal sanction within a conception that encompasses not only the afflictive dimension of punishment but also directs it towards reestablishing the legal order and rehabilitating the convicted individual. This formulation should be considered alongside the guarantee of the impartiality of the judge, the right to defense, and the adversarial nature of the proceedings, all of which are expressly enshrined in the Fundamental Law. The result is a system in which state punitive power is subjected to the law and simultaneously embedded in a broader conception of justice, where the determination of criminal responsibility cannot be disjoined from the fundamental procedural guarantees. The right to defense and the adversarial nature are therefore not merely procedural elements, but represent structural conditions of the legitimacy of exercising criminal jurisdiction. In this perspective, the regulation of judicial organization, which the Fundamental Law refers to the specific Judicial Organization Law, also assumes particular interest. The current setup confirms the presence of an articulated and professionalized judicial system in which criminal jurisdiction is exercised through its own organs and according to competencies determined by the legal system. Vatican criminal law must also be considered in light of the progressive internationalization of criminal law. The fight against money laundering, the prevention of financial crime, the confiscation and freezing of assets, judicial cooperation, and counter-terrorism financing measures have contributed to transforming the system from a penal structure essentially tied to the territorial dimension of the State to a legal system capable of addressing criminal phenomena characterized by transnational dimensions. This evolution has not erased the uniqueness of Vatican law; rather, it has compelled the legislator to measure such uniqueness against the demands for effective criminal protection and the standards of international cooperation. This has resulted in a fruitful tension between the autonomy of the legal system and international openness, whereby criminal law becomes one of the tools through which the State concretely manifests its sovereignty while simultaneously ensuring the credibility and effectiveness of its judicial system. The complexity of Vatican criminal law thus primarily emerges from its multi-level structure: at the apex is the Fundamental Law; alongside it operates the discipline of sources, which acknowledges the peculiar position of canon law and establishes the criteria for normative integration; then come the penal and procedural laws of the State, regulatory provisions, and, within the limits provided, supplementary absorbed legislation. It is precisely this ordered plurality of sources that prevents any simplistic reduction of Vatican criminal law to a foreign criminal law applied in a particular territorial space. The Vatican City State has its own sovereignty, its own judicial bodies, and its own normative power; its originality lies in the fact that this sovereignty is institutionally oriented towards the particular international function of the Holy See and is exercised through a legal system that maintains a structural relationship with canon law. Vatican criminal justice thus appears as the meeting point between state sovereignty, legality, jurisdiction, canon law, international law, and the protection of individuals. It is precisely this legal compenetration, legally regulated and not merely symbolic, that makes the criminal law of the Vatican City State one of the most singular subjects of contemporary legal comparison: a system in which the State’s punitive power is inserted into a legal framework of irreducibly unique character, and in which punishment, according to the new Fundamental Law, is called not only to react to violations of criminal norms but also to contribute to restoring justice, rehabilitating the convicted person, reintegrating them, and restoring the violated legal order. In this perspective, understanding Vatican criminal law means understanding the particular legal architecture of the State that expresses it: not a mere exception to the rule, but a sovereign legal system endowed with its own institutional rationality, in which the penal function constitutes one of the most delicate and significant manifestations of state power.
Cav.Prof Giandomenico Mitidieri Sorice
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