The Court of Cassation has ruled: the calling of the referendum for the total repeal of the so-called Calderoli Law on Differentiated Autonomy is legitimate. The decision on admissibility therefore goes back to the Constitutional Court.
The proposal for partial repeal, instead, and we could say consequently, would seem to have no more reason to exist, especially after the well-known, and already intervened, pronouncement of the Consulta. But what does it mean exactly? Well, it is quickly said. Since the Abrogative Referendum represents the instrument with which citizens can ask for the total or partial repeal of a law, it follows that if the referendum itself were to have a positive outcome, it would follow that the rule that is the object of the popular consultation, in this case the Calderoli Law, should, as in fact it should, be removed, so to speak, from the legal system. And on the political level, even before the legal level, such an eventuality could, with good likelihood, weigh perhaps not a little on the stability of the current Government majority which, all things considered, would be defeated precisely with reference to one of its warhorses. In the meantime, because, through this mechanism, the Referendum is understood in its various typologies, the citizen has the possibility to actively participate in the political decision, integrating it, modifying it, repealing it if it does not meet his/her approval. Therefore, because, in this way, citizens, in addition to being more active, since they are actually involved in the first person, and participants, are placed in the condition of becoming bearers of responsibility and awareness, recognizing themselves as real protagonists of the democratic process of their own Country. Finally, because, saying it otherwise but not too much, through the Referendum, Abrogative in particular, citizens would seem to even express themselves on the approval, in and of itself considered, towards the government action that should/could thus test and understand the moods of the People and, if necessary, radically change its own approach.
Although the government led by Giorgia Meloni, which took office on 22 October 2022, also during 2023 and again in the current year, would seem to have been able to count on a large and, all things considered, accommodating parliamentary majority despite a frequent tendency of the three main parties of the government coalition to assert their respective specificities, however, probably also thanks to the "freshness" of the renewed Secretariat of the Democratic Party, and the affirmation of the President of the 5 Star Movement Giuseppe Conte, former President of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic from 1 June 2018 to 13 February 2021, it would seem to perhaps begin to waver. In fact, it cannot be denied that the approval of the bill on differentiated autonomy has triggered a very heated political debate in Italy, the outcomes of which are those punctuated by the rulings of the interested Courts. If it is true, as it is true, that the Constitutional Court had considered the Calderoli law legitimate, considering only some parts of it unconstitutional, however, when it is called, the Referendum would require the participation of the majority of those entitled to vote to be valid, that is, fifty percent plus one of the voters. This will be the irrefutable fact, probably definitive, of the effectiveness and approval attributable to the Meloni Government. And if one wanted to understand why, probably, such why, it should be sought in the participatory "trend" of the masses on the occasion of electoral appointments, evidently, in recent years, rather disappointing.
The objective, therefore, all things considered, would not seem at all simple to achieve, but nevertheless not impossible to pursue considering the interests at stake. And if the numerical participation figure were not reached, the referendum would fail and the law, like it or not, would remain in force. If instead it were repealed, then with good likelihood, it could also ring the alarm bell in relation to the other hobbyhorse of the current government majority, that is, in relation to the so-called premiership. All things considered, and going further, the current economic contingency, conditioning the reformist action, would indeed seem to constitute the only real point of comparison with respect to the goodness or otherwise of the government action which, should probably intervene more effectively in the daily life and economic well-being of citizens tried by the effects of the Pandemic first and then of the wars.
If it is true, and it is worth reflecting on, that the instability of the different government experiences that have followed one another over the years seems to have become chronic as a political fact, however it would seem equally true to be able to consider the absence, for whatever reason, even of a practical and experiential nature, of forms of balancing (consider for example the experience of the Pentapartito), so to speak, political, within the coalition concerned from time to time. And probably, the implementation of reforms suitable for overcoming the boundaries of time should pass precisely through the preparation of forms of adaptation with respect to the concerns also coming from the opposition political forces.
Giuseppina Di Salvatore – Lawyer, Nuoro
