Because the political fever on referendums is rising
The Scratches of Damato
The digital collection of signatures to promote the referendum to abrogate, in whole or in part, ordinary laws, or acts having the force of law, provided for by Article 75 of the Constitution, has caused controversy at times even sickening – rightly complained about the Reformist by the expert Giovanni Guzzetta – on the danger that this will end up allowing such an easy use of this right as to further weaken the parliamentary system. Which already suffers from its own for many reasons, among which the identity and organizational crisis of the parties, inevitably projected on Parliament, stands out.
The danger of a weakening of the parliamentary system from too frequent recourse to the referendum institute – let's call it referenda – certainly exists. But I doubt that the best remedy is that, immediately proposed instead by fine constitutionalists, as well as politicians, to frustrate the digitization of signatures – just allowed with a law approved unanimously by the same Chambers without anyone noticing, as Guzzetta noted – asking for more: for example, 800,000 against the 500,000 required by the Constitution in force since 1948. Nor would it be appropriate to return to defend the participation of the absolute majority of those entitled to vote required to consider the result valid of the count between yes and no to repeal. This so-called quorum has somewhat distorted the abstention, turning it into a substantial vote against.
There is a simpler way, I would say cleaner, to avoid the risk of transforming the abrogative referendum into a continuous, tiring conflict between the Chambers that pass a law and the voters who reject it, thus disavowing the majority who themselves in the previous political elections they have determined or contributed to determining, and thus increasing the so-called ungovernability of the country. Which already every now and then the president on duty of the Republic makes up for it by openly setting up executives unrelated to the usual or normal political "formulas", such as the seaside or national solidarity ones of the so-called first Republic, or the technical ones of the second.
In my opinion, it would be enough to introduce an amendment to the law governing the abrogative referendum so that the partial or total repeal of a law cannot be promoted before a certain period of time has elapsed from its approval in Parliament. That is, it must be allowed to apply it sufficiently to verify and evaluate its effects, to protect at least common sense. Moreover, the case wanted – but it must not be just a case, perhaps sought with political expedients such as the use of early elections – that the abrogative referendum governed in 1970, with a delay of 22 years from the entry into force of the Constitution, to allow an attempt to retaliate against the Catholics, who had just been defeated in Parliament on divorce, was already announced in 1972 but postponed to 1974. That time also served to better evaluate, more consciously, the law which was in fact confirmed by the voters. A famous bubbly cartoon by Giorgio Forattini immortalized the defeat of the then secretary of the DC Amintore Fanfani, who had abruptly rode that referendum like a crusade underestimating the secular evolution of Italy.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/perche-ce-subbuglio-sulla-referendite/ on Tue, 21 Sep 2021 05:33:06 +0000.