Legal issue: the constitutionality of legislative restrictions upon professional work with minors for the following categories of persons:
- those who have or had convictions;
- those, with respect to whom criminal prosecution was terminated on non-rehabilitating grounds;
- those who are or were under criminal prosecution (unless it was terminated on rehabilitating grounds).
Ratio decidendi: the Court has deemed the possibility of restrictions of this kind to be constitutionally justified as a matter of principle. However, it has held some specific restrictions to be constitutionally unbalanced, disproportionate and therefore contradictory to the Constitution, in particular:
- unconditional and automatic prohibition with regard to persons who were convicted for crimes which do not fall within the categories of ‘grave’, ‘particularly grave’ or sexual crimes;
- dismissal in cases when the criminal case is not yet complete and resolved;
- dismissal from work or refusal to hire for a work connected to minors, in the event that the conviction of the person concerned was for an offence which since then has been already decriminalised.
