Copasir is up to the opposition. Word of prof. Baldassarre (former Constitutional Court)
Theses, historical comparisons and hopes on the Copasir presidency according to the president emeritus of the Constitutional Court, Antonio Baldassarre
"The problem of the presidency of the Copasir parliamentary commission is a small problem but of great legal, political and constitutional importance". This is said by the president emeritus of the Constitutional Court Antonio Baldassarre commenting, in a video, the stalemate that the Parliamentary Committee for the security of the Republic is experiencing and hoping that the Copasir presidency will go to the opposition as required by law, according to the president emeritus of the Court: “This is a bad question because it sends a negative message to public opinion – continues Baldassarre -. It hurts relations between Parliament and public opinion. A message of legality must be given. If you give the impression that parliamentarians can do anything and we must observe the law, the resulting message is very negative and discredits Parliament and the political class ”.
Baldassarre: "If the majority controls itself in reality there is no control"
Copasir is a bicameral body, made up of 5 senators and 5 majority and opposition deputies, whose task is to verify that the Security Information System carries out their work in compliance with the Constitution, the laws and in the exclusive interest of the Republic. . “ The law on Copasir has provided that the presidency goes to the opposition because it is a guarantee commission – says the president emeritus of the Constitutional Court in an interview with Il Giornale -. The presidency of the committees of inquiry must also go to the opposition. The logic is that for all the commissions that carry out a function of guaranteeing democracy there must be a president who comes from the opposition precisely to prevent the power of the majority from becoming dictatorial . If the majority controls itself there is actually no control. For this reason at least the president must be from the opposition ”.
The stalemate on the internal Copasir in the center right
Currently the presidency is held by the honorable Raffaele Volpi della Lega, former undersecretary of defense in the Conte I government. With the formation of the Draghi government, the League entered the government majority therefore, according to the law, according to Baldasssarre, the presidency should be attributed to an exponent of the Brothers of Italy .
The letter-appeal of the constitutionalists on Copasir to the opposition
Antonio Baldassarre, together with 50 other constitutionalists and political scientists , signed a letter appeal addressed to the presidents of the two chambers to resolve this stalemate. “It is a small problem because the presidency of one of the many parliamentary commissions – continues the jurist in his video -. It is a major legal problem because in this case the law provides that the presidency is held by an opposition representative, but currently there is a president who belongs to a party that supports the government and belongs to the parliamentary majority ”.
Fico and Casellati called to enforce legality in Parliament
The law requires the presidents of the Chamber and Senate to ensure compliance with the law within the Parliament. “They are the ones who have to act in some way – adds prof. Baldassarre to Il Giornale -. The problem is that the presidents of the two chambers have given a non-response to the requests . They said that it was not up to them, instead it is up to them not to choose the person, it is clear that he must be elected by the Commission, but to put the problem in the conference of the group leaders, this must be done, absolutely because they are the guarantors of legality inside of the Chambers. They cannot pass the ball to the parties ”. The President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella also intervened in this affair, but he does not have the power to decide. “The President of the Republic in these cases can only exercise moral suasion – continued prof. Baldassarre – as he says he did. That is, it can spend its authority to convince the presidents of the chambers to find a solution ”.
Baldassarre: "Bad message to public opinion"
The jurist also raises a question relating to the particular period our country is experiencing, burdened by restrictions on individual freedom aimed at combating the pandemic. “This is a bad question because it sends a negative message to public opinion – continues the jurist in his video -. It hurts relations between Parliament and public opinion. A message of legality must be given. If you give the impression that parliamentarians can do anything and we must observe the law, the resulting message is very negative and discredits Parliament and the political class ”.
The precedent D'Alema del Copasir commented by Baldassarre
The attribution of the Copasir chair to a member of the majority has a single precedent. During the Monti government, the Copasir chair remained in the hands of Massimo D'Alema even though he was part of a party with the ruling majority. “The differences are numerous – underlines prof. Baldassarre -. First of all D'Alema resigned , which the current president did not do, only to remain in his post through a general consensus of all parties. In this case there is no general consensus, there are opposition parties that demand it ”.
The press conference of intellectuals on Copasir
“The democracy of law. Here are the precedents kept hidden ”. This is the theme of the second press conference of the promoters of the open letter signed by over 50 constitutionalists, jurists and political scientists, on the non-renewal of the Parliamentary Committee for the Security of the Republic, which will be held on Wednesday 28 at 11 in the Nassyria Press Room of the Senate. The constitutionalists Salvatore Curreri, Tommaso Edoardo Frosini, Felice Giuffrè and the political scientists Luigi Di Gregorio, Marco Gervasoni and Piero Ignazi will speak. Participants are the vice-president of the Chamber Fabio Rampelli and the Hon Elio Vito, who resigned from Copasir in protest for the failure to comply with law 124/2007; coordinated by Laura Hart. In the first event, held last Wednesday, the promoters presented the open letter addressed to presidents Fico and Casellati signed by constitutionalists and bipartisan political scientists, including the emeritus presidents of the Constitutional Court Antonio Baldassare and Valerio Onida, whose number of subscribers has indeed risen in the meantime to over 50. The promoters will present the previous parliamentarians on the matter tomorrow that require the intervention of the presidents of the Chambers to ensure compliance with the law on a body so important for the balance of powers between the Government and Parliament and "restore legality constitutional blatantly violated ".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/il-copasir-spetta-allopposizione-parola-del-prof-baldassarre-ex-corte-costituzionale/ on Tue, 27 Apr 2021 13:43:09 +0000.