Royal Decree Law No. 2033 of 15 October 1925 was initially a “framework law” for combating “agricultural fraud”, i.e. agri-food crimes. One hundred years later, however, we can safely say that it is now undergoing the therapeutic/legal agony of “end-of-life never”!

This legislation is still used on a daily basis by the Central Inspectorate for Quality Protection and Fraud Prevention (ICQRF), the supervisory body of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry, to investigate offences that, in our humble opinion, have been expressly repealed since at least 1999 (see Legislative Decree 507/1999) as they have been downgraded to administrative offences.

Nevertheless, the results of the laboratory tests carried out during these administrative checks are sent to the Public Prosecutor’s Office and entered in the General Register, before further administrative laboratory tests are carried out under the direction of the Public Prosecutor. All this with no regard for the “defence guarantees” referred to in Articles 24 and 111 of the Constitution of the Italian Republic.

Of course, some will argue that a royal decree-law of 1925 could not have been concerned with a Constitution that would not come into force until 1948! So what? So perhaps the time has come to retire it or, to put it more bluntly, to certify the “legal death” of that royal decree in 2026 with a nice “express repeal”, or not? Not to mention that for some matters governed by that monarchical decree, the republican legislature has introduced new regulations that are incompatible with those of Royal Decree Law 2033/1925, which thus results – in our humble opinion – in its “tacit repeal”. In other cases, it was the EU legislator who regulated the same matter, resulting in the “disapplication” of those old national rules, which are therefore hierarchically inferior. And so, at this point, in the year of Grace (and Justice?) 2026, we too will attempt to reveal to the patient reader the “controversial life” of a piece of legislation that currently survives beyond its own time.

The ‘repeals’ and ‘disapplications’ of an old royal decree-law

Whether it be ‘disapplication’ or ‘tacit repeal’, in reality, Royal Decree Law 2033/1925 – in our opinion – has been rendered completely ineffective in the current regulations on food product control and on the quality verification of fertilisers and agricultural fertilisers. In fact, we believe that there can be no uncertainty in cases of ‘express repeal’ of those 1925 regulations by other, much more recent national regulations, which often implement EU directives: such is the case, for example, of the “express repeal” of Articles 1, 2, 3 and 4 by Law 748/1984, which implements EU directives on “fertilisers”. The same applies to the express repeal of Articles 8, 9 and 10 by Law 281/1963 on the production and marketing of “feed”, a framework law which was in turn reformulated and supplemented by Community regulations introduced mainly after the enactment of Regulation (EC) 178/2002, itself a framework regulation for food safety.

The following have also been expressly repealed:

• Articles 22 and 23 (partially), by Legislative Decree 109/1992, implementing EU directives on oil labelling;
• Articles 26 and 27, governing the production of “butter”, by Law 1526/1956;
• Articles 28, 29 and 30, by Law 1316/1951, concerning the production and trade of “margarine” and “hydrogenated edible fats”;
• Article 31 concerning the use of the name “lard”, a provision that was repealed by Presidential Decree 502/1998, i.e. by a decree otherwise devoted solely to “bread”.

The ‘tacit repeals’

Even more complex and delicate, of course, is the issue of the “tacit repeal” of certain provisions of the royal decree in question, repeals which for many decades – in practice since 1962, the year in which Law 283/1962 came into force, the Framework Law on food health and hygiene – have deactivated various provisions of that royal decree-law, namely all those provisions that prohibited and penalised the adulteration of specific food products (see, for example, “olive oil” referred to in Articles 20, 21, 23, 24 and 25).

In fact, Law 283/1962, although explicitly aimed at protecting food safety, also regulates (see, in particular, the provision of Article 5, letter a) the “product quality” aspects of food products, given the close connection, if not coincidence, between the two aspects (product quality and health). In fact, the commercial quality of a food product often, if not always, also has a health value or an impact on consumer health.

The ‘disapplication’ of EU regulations

The EU legislation – which overlaps and therefore automatically ‘disapplies’ (i.e. produces its ‘tacit repeal’) the provisions contained in Royal Decree Law 2033/1925 for specific categories of agricultural products – can be found, first and foremost, in Regulation (EU) 1308/2013 of 1 December 2013. This regulation is relevant for:

• the ‘wines’ referred to in Chapter II of the Royal Decree Law in question, Articles 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17, whose provisions shall be deemed to be replaced by:

– the ‘definitions’ referred to in Annex I, Part XIII, of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 and the

– the “definitions” referred to in Annex II, Part IV, of the aforementioned Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013;

• the “oils” referred to in Chapter IV of the Royal Decree under consideration, Articles 20, 21, 23, 24 and 25, which are to be considered replaced by:

– Annex I, Part VII, and Annex VII, Part VIII, of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 for the definitions of “olive oil and table olives”, and Regulation (EU) No 2022/2104 for the rules on the marketing of “olive oil”;

• the “cheeses” referred to in Chapter VI of the Royal Decree-Law in question must therefore be considered as not applicable by Annex VII, Part III, point 2 of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013:

– Article 32 (in part);

– Articles 35 and 36 relating to the category of so-called “margarine cheese”.

Furthermore, Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, the general regulation on the labelling and presentation of foodstuffs, has disapplied the article of Royal Decree-Law No 2033/1925 concerning labelling requirements.
Article 34, on the other hand, must be considered tacitly repealed by the Framework Law on Food Safety, i.e. Law 283/1962, Article 5.

The ‘ugly mess’ of analysis procedures

A separate and, if possible, even more complicated (if not convoluted) discussion is warranted for the articles that Royal Decree Law 2033/1925 dedicates to analytical laboratory tests on samples of agri-food products, namely Articles 41 to 45.

In a nutshell, we note that these articles regulate the following process:

• obligation for food companies to provide samples of agricultural products covered by Royal Decree Law 2033/1925 (Articles 41 and 42) free of charge to personnel designated for “official control” (ICQRF inspectors);
• immediate reporting to the judicial authorities of cases of “non-compliance” with current regulations of the substances analysed (Article 44);
• the right of the food company to challenge an unfavourable analytical result by submitting a specific “request for review of the analysis” within 15 days of notification of the unfavourable report, accompanied by proof of payment of a “review fee” (the amount of which has been periodically updated) (Article 44);
• ‘review analysis’, for which, however, the aforementioned Article 44 did not provide for the participation of a defence lawyer, this right of defence was only introduced by judgment no. 149 of 3 December 1969, in which the Constitutional Court declared Article 44 to be unlawful insofar as it did not provide for the right (for the applicant for review of analysis) to appoint a defence counsel.

However, there remains the defensive vulnerability represented by the failure to provide for the appointment of a “court-appointed defence counsel” where the applicant for the review has not appointed a ‘defence counsel of choice’ because – let us be clear – if the review analyses can/must have probative value in court, then the “defence guarantees” cannot be ignored when they are carried out.

However, the “analysis review” procedure should now be considered governed (based on the express derogation provided for in Article 18 of Legislative Decree 27/2021) by the provisions of Presidential Decree 327/1980, as it refers to the assessment of violations of the quality of food products pursuant to Articles 5, letter a), and 6 of Law 283/1962.

However, this solution still faces a serious interpretative obstacle due to the repeal (by Article 18 of Legislative Decree 27/2021) of Article 1 of Law 283/1962, i.e. the repeal of the provision that provided for the “review analysis” procedure for all violations of Law 283/1962, including those concerning Article 5(a), i.e. violations relating to goods.

Current inconsistencies

At this point, given the current practice followed by the ICQRF, which continues to operate in accordance with Royal Decree Law 2033/1925, a series of questions arise:

• That is to say, why, in 2026, is the (unfavourable) outcome of the initial analysis still being communicated to the Public Prosecutor for the violation of these old regulations, which are at the very least and certainly “decriminalised” (see Legislative Decree 507/1999), if not repealed and/or in any case to be considered “disapplied”?
• And if, on the other hand, there are still grounds for suspicion of a crime, why does the Public Prosecutor not proceed with “legally guaranteed” analyses (such as those of “urgent technical investigation”, pursuant to Article 360 of the Code of Criminal Procedure), as the Court of Cassation has repeatedly reminded him for many years in numerous rulings?

However, even today, the Public Prosecutor’s Office continues to order second administrative analyses (known as “review analyses”) in accordance with Royal Decree Law 2033/1925: thus ordering analyses which, in addition to not enjoying the same “defence guarantees” provided for by the Code of Criminal Procedure for the equivalent investigative act under Article 360, are also “burdensome” for food operators, as they are subject to the so-called “review tax”, in practice a real tax on the “right to defence”. At this point, we would venture to question the constitutionality of this tax.

A final thought

Well, faced with this regulatory framework, which some – perhaps brutally, but frankly – now refer to as a “legal Tower of Babel”, and in which measures from all periods and even from specific and different food sectors are mixed together (think, for example, of the aforementioned Article 31 on ‘lard’ , the repeal of which was, however, provided for in legislation specifically dedicated to “bread”), the best, if not the only, solution at this point would be, in our opinion, the express repeal of the entire (or what remains of) outdated royal decree-law in question, in order to remove once and for all any misunderstanding and ambiguity regarding “product definitions”, “controls and related procedures” for laboratory analysis, and “penalties”.

Learn more about this topic with the book “The historical evolution of Italian food legislation 1925/2025“, edited by Carlo Correra and recently published by Tecniche Nuove.