Meloni governs Italy by ‘decree’

Before the summer vacation of the Italian political agenda, the Government of Giorgia Meloni approved a decree law that contains rules for disparate matters. It addresses everything from the interception of communications in legal proceedings to the fight against forest fires; from taxi licenses to the salaries of the directors of a private company; from the rehabilitation of drug addicts to the rise in the prices of plane tickets to the islands or the presence of the blue crab in the Mediterranean.

This cocktail of rules was encompassed with sufficiently explicit terminology in the decree bus, a Latin word that means something like “for everything”. This example, while not the first of its kind approved by Meloni, illustrates the government’s particular penchant for decrees. They are figures contemplated in the Constitution only for exceptional cases and that leave little room for the opposition, although they are much faster and more agile than the traditional legislative process in Parliament, since it goes through debates in the Chambers that can last for months.

The excessive use of this legal tool has become a distortion of the Constitution. Decrees are a common evil of Italian politics that favors the concentration of legislative power in the hands of the Executive, but all previous governments, technical and political, have used them abundantly. Even so, the current government stands out for having broken records, surpassing its predecessors. According to data collected by the Openpolis Foundation, which investigates politics and economics, Meloni’s is the Italian government that has published the most decree laws on average per month in the last 15 years, with 4.17; followed by Mario Draghi, with 3.2 and Giuseppe Conte with 3.1, who governed during the most critical phases of the coronavirus pandemic. In total, the prime minister has produced a total of 25, compared to only five ordinary laws, in less than eight months, until May 2023.

The abuse is such that even the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, who was a magistrate of the Constitutional Court and is not used to assessing the decisions of the Executive, has criticized on different occasions its unscrupulous use.

At the end of February, when 205 additional sections were inserted in the conversion of a decree in Parliament to the 149 included in the initial text, Mattarella sent a letter to Meloni and the presidents of the Chambers. In the letter, the president regretted that these had become “mere containers for the most disparate regulatory interventions” and invited them to be placed back “within constitutional limits.”

Since the situation did not improve, last May, Mattarella was forced to intervene again and met with the presidents of the Chambers to reiterate his request and try to bring order.

Meloni’s criticisms of the past

In the past, however, Meloni herself was one of the most critical voices against this practice. For example, following a reform of RAI carried out by the Renzi government in 2015 through this channel, the current prime minister described as “very serious” the use of “a legal instrument provided for by the Constitution only for cases of necessity and urgency” with the aim of “skipping Parliament”. In 2020 she also charged harshly against those approved by Giuseppe Conte during the pandemic. “What is so urgent as to go over Parliament? Do we still have a Constitution in Italy? ”, She launched then her.

A government like Meloni’s, which has a large parliamentary majority, can afford to raise laws through the ordinary channel, and yet resorts to insertions of this type even at the last minute, since the opposition does not have a sufficient number of deputies to block them. “Although it may be demagogic and irresponsible, this change of opinion in politics is normal,” says Piero Ignazi, a political scientist and professor at the University of Bologna.

Nicola Lupo, a political scientist and professor at the LUISS University in Rome and director of the Center for Studies on Parliament, believes that in cases such as that of the current coalition executive, governing by decree also helps to settle differences between partners. “It is too comfortable a practice that allows the different political forces that make up the coalition to find a meeting point and make it take effect immediately,” he points out. And he agrees: “It is symptomatic that it is used so insistently by a government that has a clear majority in both Chambers of Parliament and that, thanks to the reduction in the number of deputies and senators, cannot even invoke the excessive slowness of the process ordinary legislature”.

The Openpolis Foundation underlines in its report that resorting to this tool confirms the will of the Meloni Executive to try to get the measures provided for in the Council of Ministers approved “by limiting as much as possible the moments of confrontation, both inside and outside Parliament.” And it highlights another of the risks of the excessive proliferation of this figure: that it is depriving Parliament of its legislative function and reducing it solely to the possibility of introducing amendments to what is approved by the Government. “This resource saturates the agenda of the Chambers of Parliament, which will not have much time to devote to something else,” reads the report.

Governments tend to use decrees for more political than practical purposes, as they have found in them the perfect way to quickly intervene in current issues with the aim of showing public opinion that they are dealing with the most debated and burning issues.

Thus, Meloni is “accentuating” a phenomenon that had already been abused in the past, with the aim of “transferring to public opinion the image that the Government has the capacity for rapid action and intervention,” Ignani considers. “It is also used in cases in which the Executive does not have much confidence in the ordinary parliamentary passage for fear that the opposition will knock down some proposals,” he adds.

The political scientist Roberto D’Alimonte is of the same opinion, who defines the ordinary Italian legislative procedure as “cumbersome and slow” and considers that this practice is used “to shorten time and because it takes away space for the opposition.”

Collateral damage

Another problem with abusing decrees is that, in the 60 days that elapse before they become law, additional measures are often inserted into the text that contribute to making the norm even less homogeneous and specific, requirements imposed by the Constitution to the decrees. For example, in March, in one on aid to mitigate the high price of energy, an amendment with a small amnesty for tax evaders was included in Parliament.

Apart from the risk of breaking legal principles, this technique carries other practical dangers. For a decree to be effectively applied, it is necessary for the ministries involved to in turn approve a resolution that explains in detail how the law should be put into practice. The calls bus they make the situation worse, because they need a resolution for each different measure. The result is a tide of regulations that, beyond their media impact, end up remaining a dead letter.

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