ROME (ITALPRESS) – The Constitutional Court has found unfounded the question of constitutionality of the entire law on the differentiated autonomy of ordinary regions, considering instead specific provisions of the same legislative text to be illegitimate. The Justices believe that the distribution of legislative and administrative functions among the different territorial levels of government, in implementation of Article 116, third paragraph, should not correspond to the need for an allocation of power among the different segments of the political system, but should be done in accordance with the common good of society and the protection of the rights guaranteed by our Constitution. To this end, it is the constitutional principle of subsidiarity that governs the distribution of functions between the state and regions. Within this framework, differentiated autonomy must be functional in improving the efficiency of public apparatus, ensuring greater political accountability and better responding to the expectations and needs of citizens.
The Court, in examining the appeals of the regions of Puglia, Tuscany, Sardinia and Campania, the defenses of the Prime Minister and the acts of intervention ad opponendum of the regions of Lombardy, Piedmont and Veneto, found the following aspects of the law to be unconstitutional: the possibility that the agreement between the State and the region and the subsequent law of differentiation transfer matters or areas of matters, where the Court considers that the devolution must concern specific legislative and administrative functions and must be justified, in relation to the individual region, in the light of the aforementioned principle of subsidiarity; the conferral of a legislative delegation for the determination of the essential levels of services concerning civil and social rights without appropriate directive criteria, with the consequence that the substantive decision is put back into the hands of the government, limiting the constitutional role of Parliament; the provision that it is a decree of the President of the Council of Ministers to determine the updating of the LEPs; the use of the procedure provided by the budget law for 2023 for the determination of the LEPs with Dpcm, until the legislative decrees provided by the same law to define the LEPs come into force. The possibility of modifying, by interministerial decree, the rates of the co-participation in the revenue of state taxes, provided for financing the transferred functions, in case of deviation between the expenditure needs and the trend of the same revenue; on the basis of this provision, precisely 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 accomplished fulfillment of the same functions; the optionality, rather than the dutifulness, for the regions receiving the devolution, of the contribution to the public finance objectives, with the consequent weakening of the bonds of solidarity and unity of the Republic; the extension of Law no. 86 of 2024, and thus of Article 116, third paragraph, of the Constitution, to regions with special statutes, which, on the other hand, can use the procedures provided for in their special statutes to obtain greater forms of autonomy. The Consultation notes that it is up to Parliament, in the exercise of its discretion, to fill the gaps resulting from the acceptance of some of the issues raised by the plaintiffs, while respecting constitutional principles, so as to ensure the full functionality of the law.
(ITALPRESS).
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For the Consulta illegitimate some provisions on autonomy
