Italy New Constitution Part 3

Italy New Constitution Part 3

According to SPORTSQNA, the principal function of parliament, the legislative one, is now exercised collectively by the two chambers alone, while, according to the statute, it was collectively the responsibility of the head of state and the parliament; the first was deprived of the right to sanction laws, in which he was a participant in the legislative power. The legislative initiative, first due to the head of state, and for it to the government and the members of the chambers, is also extended to other organs and entities to which it is conferred by constitutional laws; the constitution itself recognizes it to the regional councils and to the national council for economy and labor; popular initiative is also allowed, since at least 50,000 voters can propose bills, provided they are drafted in articles. As for the examination and approval of laws, the following are envisaged:) a normal procedure, in which the bill is first examined in each chamber by a commission and then by the chamber itself: this was the only procedure provided for by the statute and is now mandatory for bills in constitutional and electoral matters, legislative delegation, ratification of treaties, budgets and state accounts; b) an abbreviated procedure for bills which the chambers have declared urgent; c) a procedure by delegation to commissions (a system already adopted in the most recent fascist legislation), in which not only the examination but also the approval of the bills are, in the cases and forms established by the regulations of the chambers, and always save the faculty to return to the normal procedure in certain cases, referred to commissions, including permanent ones, formed in such a way as to reflect the proportion of parliamentary groups, ie parties. Once the law has been approved by the two chambers, the president of the republic must promulgate it within one month, or within the shortest term that the law itself, if declared urgent, has established; only is the head of state conferred a power of suspensive veto, because he can suspend the promulgation, asking the chambers for a new resolution: if the chambers approve the law again, he must promulgate it. The laws are published immediately after their promulgation and enter into force on the fifteenth day following, unless a different term is established by the law itself.

An institution of direct democracy, which the constitution has accepted, is the popular referendum, to be addressed by decree of the president of the republic, tending above all to request the total or partial repeal of an existing law or an act having the force of law: not a referendum is allowed for tax or budget laws, amnesty or pardon and ratification of treaties. Other applications find the referendum in the regional system and, with a suspensive veto character, for the constitutional revision laws.

The parliament can delegate to the government the faculty of issuing delegated laws, that is legislative decrees, but only with the determination of guiding principles and criteria, for a limited time and for defined objects: the granting of full powers is therefore excluded.

After long discussions, the constituent has admitted the government’s faculty to legislate by decree-law in extraordinary cases of necessity and urgency; the decree-law must however, on the same day of publication, be presented for conversion into law to the chambers which, even if dissolved, are specially convened and must meet within 5 days: if the decree-law is not converted into law within 60 days of publication (no longer within two years as established by law no.100 of 31 January 1926), it loses its effectiveness not ex nunc, as per said law of 1926, but ex tunc, except to regulate relations with law juridical that had arisen on its basis.

Regarding the inspection function of the chambers, interesting innovations are that for which the provisional exercise can only be granted for a total of four months, and the other for which the parliamentary committees of inquiry must be formed in such a way as to ensure proportional representation of the groups parliamentarians and must have the same powers as the judicial authority, which they lacked in the past.

The president of the republic, head of state, represents national unity, the permanent force of the state above the changing majorities. It is an elective and temporary constitutional body, while in the previous system it was hereditary and for life; however, on the whole, it has less prominent functions than those pertaining to the monarch; without the sanction (see above), it is no longer part of the legislative power, nor is it anymore, like the sovereign, expressly declared holder of executive power, which belongs rather to the government, despite the fact that in various articles of the constitution the expression government is identify with that of president of the republic. However, he is entitled, both in the external representation of the state and in the legislative, executive and judicial functions, various attributions that formally make it the most representative constitutional body, even if, in fact, its powers are less decisive for the life of the state than those of parliament and government. He is the maximum coordinator of the constitutional powers and activities of the state and of the bodies that carry them out; he is the vigilant guardian of their delicate balance, both when he interprets the will of parliament by designating or revoking the president of the council of ministers, and when exercising thesummum jus to dissolve the rooms.

Italy New Constitution 3