Another communication, dated January 20, 2025, was sent by two special rapporteurs of the United Nations Human Rights Council to the Italian government about bill no. 1660 approved by the Chamber of Deputies in September 2024 - now bill 1236, the so-called "security package". The communication is in addition to a previous one dated 19 December 2024 (already commented) made by six Special Rapporteurs and which raised as the main reason for concern related to the "security package" the potential limitation of freedom of assembly, as well as the presence of discriminatory measures against migrants and detainees. 

The Communication of the Special Rapporteurs on adequate housing and extreme poverty

In this new document, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, Special Rapporteur on "adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to non-discrimination in this context", and Olivier De Schutter, Special Rapporteur on "extreme poverty and human rights", focus on some passages of the bill that affect housing occupations and forced evictions. If adopted, the law under discussion in the Senate would criminalize the condition of those who are unable to pay for the rent of the house and would reduce the guarantees provided by the law in the event of an eviction, causing an increase in the number of homeless. 

A new crime of arbitrary occupation of residential property?

The criticisms of the special rapporteurs focus on art. 10 of the bill, which would introduce art. 634-bis of the Criminal Code to punish with imprisonment from two to seven years anyone who, using violence or threats, illegally occupies someone else's home or prevents access to the owner or those who legally possess it. The law also punishes with the same severity "anyone who interferes or cooperates in the occupation of the property, or receives or pays money or other utility for the occupation itself". The occupant who collaborates with the authorities in vacating the property is not punishable, and proceedings are carried out ex officio if the property belongs to a person incapacitated due to age or illness. The bill also provides for amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure, providing that the judicial police, if the owner requests the house as his or her only home, can order the immediate release of the house that appears to be arbitrarily occupied; in the event of an objection, the police may order the forced release of the occupied house and the public prosecutor must confirm the measure within 48 hours, unless he considers the police's actions to be unlawful; the court must then validate the release of the property within another 48 hours.

The new article 634-bis would supplement art. 633 (invasion of land and buildings punishable with imprisonment from 1 to three years (penalty aggravated if the invasion involves danger to public health or public safety) and art. 634 (violent disturbance of the possession of real estate, punishable by imprisonment up to two years). 

A rule that also affects deprivation-based squatting 

The UN Experts' Communication expresses concern that the law specifically condemns acts of violence or threats committed in connection with the eviction of occupied buildings, as if the general criminal rules on such acts were not sufficiently strict. Even the shortened methods of expulsion raise perplexities, in particular, because they do not allow the search for alternative housing solutions for those who are expelled from the house they lived in with or without a legal title. Art. 634-bis, if adopted, would not allow for a distinction between different situations. The measure, in fact, would apply to squatters of necessity, such as people who cannot pay for alternative housing to the one illegally occupied, people who cannot prove the title that gave them the right to live in a certain housing (oral agreements, housing in exchange for services, etc.), or people who have settled in abandoned buildings or who live in camps or informal settlements. Their condition would be equated with that of criminals who do not act out of necessity, but for profit. In the current situation of widespread wage and housing precariousness and with 150,000 pending executive evictions and as many housing foreclosures awaiting execution, adopting such legislation would lead to a series of possible violations of international standards on economic and social rights. The experts refer to Art. 11 of the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, particularly the right to adequate housing. 

A rule that can affect human rights defenders

The Communication criticizes, first of all, the provisions that provide for criminal sanctions also for those who "interfere or cooperate in the occupation of the property" or otherwise oppose evictions, noting that these activities are also typical of " civil society organizations defending human rights, such as tenant unions or organizations supporting persons in precarity, who assist persons living in informality without a proper legal title. They often interfere in conflicts with homeowners on behalf of persons living in their properties without official legal title to achieve the regularization of their tenancy status, to prevent homelessness or to find suitable housing alternatives".

A bill that does not protect the poor and takes retrogressive measures 

Criminalizing the typical practices of squatters and homeless people, who have no alternative ways of accessing the right to housing, imposing heavy criminal penalties due to their state of poverty or for not having a valid housing title, disproportionately impacts the right to personal freedom and personal security (protected by the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in particular, art. 9) and may in some cases result in cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (contrary to the Convention against Torture). The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has repeatedly recalled in its General Comments that respect for the right to housing implies that persons cannot be deprived of the home in which they live – whatever the title in their possession, or even in the absence of any title – if there is no alternative solution that preserves them from homelessness. An offence such as the one provided for in the security package would multiply the cases of homelessness without national policies having provided for social measures to remedy this phenomenon, not to mention that individuals and families without resources would continue to illegally occupy housing, leaving local authorities and the third sector (charities) alone to deal with the emergency. Furthermore, the measure could constitute a step backwards by the state with respect to the enjoyment of social rights, only legitimate if there are compelling reasons and a complete lack of resources.

Open questions and reiterated submissions 

The communication concludes by asking the Italian state for further information on the analysis of the possible impact of the law on the living conditions of the homeless, people in situations of extreme poverty, migrants, minorities, and Roma communities; measures taken to offer alternative solutions to evicted people; measures to prevent or contain the phenomenon of blameless evictions, i.e. due to objective supervening inability to pay; measures to address housing shortages and tenant support. It should be noted - as indeed also does the commented Communication - that the same two Special Rapporteurs, Rajagopal and De Schutter, had sent Italy a communication on similar issues in October 2023, on the occasion of the discussion of a previous bill that later merged into the "security package" always aimed at introducing the crime of occupying someone else's home. The Italian government's concise response of December 2023 mentioned the fact that two measures (the national rent support fund and the Tenant in Delinquent Housing Fund) came to compensate for any negative impact of the legislation under discussion. In 2025, however, the Special Rapporteurs note that, unfortunately, both funds were suspended in 2024 (the second was reinstated by the government in 2025), while other income support measures (including the so-called “citizenship income”) had also undergone substantial reductions.