Soaring summer temperatures are no excuse to turn up in court in flip-flops and shorts, a judge in the picturesque southern Italian island of Ischia has decreed, issuing a ban on casual dress.

According to Monday's edition of Corriere della Sera, Judge Immacolata Cozzolino has also outlawed short skirts, bare shoulders and plunging necklines, in a detailed 16-line notice pinned outside her office.

The move, publicized by the newspaper amid a national heatwave that saw temperature rise as high as 40 degrees, came after a witness in a criminal trial hosted in Ischia's non-air conditioned courtroom showed up in beach clothes, and was asked to go home and change.

Ischia is a popular holiday resort, located near the most famous island of Capri, off the coast of Naples. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is a fan, regularly spending her Easter holidays there with her husband.