The Constitutional Court has deemed the question of the constitutionality of the entire law on the differentiated autonomy of the ordinary regions to be "unfounded", while considering specific provisions of the same legislative text to be "illegitimate". This, in short, is the outcome of the appeal against the Calderoli Reform presented by the Regions of Sardinia, Puglia, Campania and Tuscany.
Regions with special statutes
Among other concerns, the Constitutional Court has established that the extension of the law, and therefore of Article 116, third paragraph, of the Constitution, to regions with special statutes is unconstitutional, since "instead, in order to obtain greater forms of autonomy, they can resort to the procedures provided for by their special statutes".
Subsidiarity
Furthermore, the distribution of legislative and administrative functions between the State and the Regions "must not correspond to the need for a division of powers between the different segments of the political system", but must occur "in function of the common good of society and the protection of the rights guaranteed by our Constitution". It is, therefore, "the constitutional principle of subsidiarity that regulates the distribution of functions between the State and the regions". The Consulta affirms this again, underlining that Autonomy "must be functional to improving the efficiency of public apparatuses, to ensuring greater political responsibility and to better respond to the expectations and needs of citizens".
The tributes
The judges also identified the unconstitutionality of the "possibility of modifying, by means of an interministerial decree, the rates of the co-participation in the revenue of the state taxes, foreseen to finance the transferred functions, in case of deviation between the spending needs and the trend of the same revenue. On the basis of this provision, the inefficient regions could be rewarded, which - after having obtained from the State the resources aimed at the exercise of the transferred functions - are not able to ensure with those resources the complete fulfillment of the same functions", explains the note of the Consulta on Autonomy.











