Mauro Pili
They have never lost their habit, but this time it went badly for them. They have always been the long arm of the State, the Italian one, in Sardinian land. Once they were state companies in all respects, one hundred percent public capital, then, as the decades passed, they became "parastatal" and, finally, they proclaimed themselves joint-stock companies, private law companies with public money and assets. Obviously, the operation was not conceived by the boards of directors alone. The State, that of the Palaces of Rome, of the Ministry of Economy, once of the Treasury, has in reality always been the inspiration behind the robbery. A way like any other to circumvent and circumvent the art. 14 of the Autonomous Statute of the Special Region of Sardinia. A cornerstone of the constitutional negotiation between the State and the Sardinian autonomist institute. The assumption is so clear that only an attacker can distort or ignore its meaning and content.
Anti-theft rule
Article 14 of Constitutional Law no. 3 of 26 February 1948, or the Statute for Sardinia, states: «The Region, within its territory, succeeds to the assets and property rights of the State of a real estate nature and to state property, excluding maritime state property. The goods and rights connected to services under state jurisdiction and to fiscal monopolies remain with the state as long as this condition lasts. The real estate located in the Region, which is not owned by anyone, belongs to the assets of the Region". The summary is an uninterpretable dogma: at the same moment in which the state function and use of that specific property, located on the territory of the Sardinian Region, ceases, without frills and waste of time, the same asset passes to the regional heritage. The last one to try was the ETI, the Italian Tobacco Authority. It was 2002. With the pass and endorsement of the then Minister of Economy, Giulio Tremonti, he put up for sale, through a crackling announcement in the legal advertising of the Corriere della Sera, none other than the Manifatture Tabacchi of Cagliari, a property of imposing dimensions in the heart of the capital of the island.
The lesson of cigarettes
An operation aimed entirely at making money, selling an asset that has been abandoned for some time, with the cigarette papers still scattered here and there. The clash with the Region was epic. The appeals and complaints gave Tremonti Padano no respite. The charges were clear: embezzlement, constitutional violation, attempted sale of other people's assets. The Region, that of the time, did not limit itself to the Constitutional Court, but presented an appeal to the Regional Administrative Court of Sardinia and even a complaint to the Court of Cagliari.
The first defeat
In sequence, the latter was the first to speak out, "seizing" that property, appointing the President of the Region as "custodian" of that immense property. Immediately afterwards, both the TAR and the Constitutional Court engraved on granite a clear and unavoidable concept: as soon as the state function ceases, that asset, whether it belongs to the State or to an entity attributable to public heritage, automatically passes to regional heritage. An application, therefore, "not static" but "dynamic" of art. 14 of the Sardinian Statute. 22 years have passed since that last judicial ruling.
Anas and railways
Yet, state bodies, transformed into joint stock companies, have never lost their "vice" over the years. Indeed, the attempted robbery was systematically repeated, from Anas which attempted to sell the disused roadman's houses scattered here and there across the island up until the last blitz in chronological order planned with the most ruthless dexterity by the infrastructural arm of the railways of State, Rete Ferroviaria Italiana SpA The claims of the company, in fact state-owned, were overwhelming: with an unprecedented appeal it asked the Court of Sassari to declare all the properties located on the front of the Porto Torres seaport as property of RFI, to to pay the Turritano Municipality one million and 171 thousand euros for the occupation of those buildings and lands, to declare the occupation of those areas illegitimate. In the judicial proceedings, incidentally, the Sardinian Region's involvement is invoked, precisely because of Article 14 of the Statute. A decisive step given that the Viale Trento lawyers had nothing left to do but lower the statutory-constitutional ace.
Heritage of Sardinia
The argument is without appeal: «May this Court ascertain and declare the ownership right of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia in relation to the properties located in Porto Torres, pursuant to art. 14 of the special Statute for Sardinia». With a timely and detailed ruling, nineteen pages of analysis and law, destined to become a new milestone in the application of the statutory rule on state real estate located in the Sardinian regional territory, the Judge, Elisa Remonti, put down in black and white a very important decision in the application of the Sardinian Statute.
Epitaph for the State
The newly published judicial provision, relating to the proceedings concluded on December 8th, is a further epitaph on the State's "cunning": «the disposal and the consequent transfer of ownership must be set for December 7th 2001, i.e. the date of the first delivery , to be understood as the moment in which RFI had only expressed its intention not to use those assets for the exercise of its corporate activities". In practice, the Judge left no escape: the moment the railway company relinquished its state "function" over those assets, they automatically passed into full ownership of the regional state property. The hearing is adjourned.
Former prison chapter
With this exemplary sentence, however, the "Article 14" chapter of the Statute is reopened heavily and without hesitation. The appeal to the Region is without appeal: it is enough to sleep on the state's real estate which has ceased its original state function. In this case there are three properties of extraordinary grandeur and importance which have ceased their original state function for the past ten years: the three former prisons of Buon Cammino in Cagliari, San Sebastiano in Sassari and Piazza Mannu in Oristano. The State is busy with a thousand subterfuges not to hand them over to the Region, in the meantime, in Viale Trento, people continue to sleep. The Sardinian Statute, increasingly a forgotten bastion.
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