Premierato does not mean “one man in command”: here’s why
Little is said about it. The fact is, however, that in the coming weeks the Minister for Institutional Reforms, Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellatiwill present a bill of constitutional revision initiative of the government. The hypothesis of semi-presidentialism has been set asidealways dear to the Brothers of Italy and even before that to the National Alliance, the majority veered towards the premiershipwhich in essence is nothing more than one variant of the parliamentary form of government. All the parties of the government majority agree and also a part of the Democratic Party, the former Renzians and former Lettians, who however cannot say it openly because the official line of the Schlein-led party is that of no to everything. Exactly like Conte’s party. In the first two phases of the pandemic, the former Prime Minister was a prince rather than prime minister, but Italians are quick to forget. Italia Viva and Azione also agree with the path of the premiership, albeit with some distinctions.
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The salient fact is that, with the majority laws that occurred in 1993 and 2005, Mattarellum and Porcellum respectively, and also with the Rosatellum of 2017, which is a majority for just over a third, the President of the Council of Ministers has been a de facto prime minister without constitutional regulation for about thirty years, he enjoys popular support but cannot – on his own – freely appoint or dismiss his own Ministers. Furthermore, with a prime minister who is the result of the electoral results, the legislative function is in fact almost always exercised by the government through decree-laws and legislative decrees. On the other hand, those who have always spoken of the centrality of Parliament, above all M5S and Pd, humiliated Parliament in the last legislature by recklessly reducing the number of parliamentarians, creating a serious problem of under-representation in the Senate.
But then it is accepted, without anyone saying anything, that the current President of the Republic Mattarella will remain in office beyond the term that he had set Giorgio Napolitano with his re-election in 2013, who had expressly spoken of the “exceptional nature” of the second mandate at the Collegio, and therefore of a full-term mandate. So much so that Napolitano resigned about a year and a half after his re-election at the Quirinale, while Mattarella has already gone further. Having said that, those who are afraid of the premiership because there would be a “lone man in command” do not want to see that the parliamentary Republic has in fact been transformed into an atypical parliamentary monarchy, not with a single man in command but with a single man in command, who is not the President of the Council of Ministers but the Head of State. If Mattarella also completed his second term (14 years in total), he would even surpass the reign of Emperor Claudius (13 years and nine months). Jokes aside, a problem of institutional balance exists and is now clear. But everyone is silent.
We therefore believe that we must intervene on the Constitution by regulating the figure of the Prime Minister. If introduced with adequate counterweights, the figure of the prime minister is certainly not that of the lone man in command. Let’s see how it can be done. First of all, it is necessary to avoid the direct election of the prime minister in a technical sense, as happens for example for mayors and regional presidents. If we proceeded with the direct election mechanism, with the names of the Prime Minister candidates indicated by law on the ballot paper, a situation would be created in which the government would essentially almost always make the laws, with Parliament relegated to applaud the prime minister’s decisions by plebiscite. A circumstance to avoid. In one of our books on the premiership, which will be published shortly for the types of Jubilei Regnani, we have therefore thought about the mechanism of indirect designation, i.e. the obligation for the President of the Republic to appoint Prime Minister the person officially indicated as such in the electoral program of the list, or coalition of lists, which obtained the most votes in the political elections.
Secondly, we need to restore centrality to Parliament. Let’s see how. The Prime Minister, who thus appointed does not require the initial vote of confidence by the Chambers, must be given the power to determine (and not just direct) the general policy of the government and to freely appoint and dismiss Ministers. On the other hand, Parliament must be able to pass a vote of no confidence – at any time during the legislature – with a constructive motion of no confidence, i.e. with the name of a new Prime Minister already ready and possibly voted on by both chambers.
Thirdly, for avoid party consociativism and therefore reversals during the legislature, the Prime Minister should be given the power to dissolve the chambers, taking it away from the Head of State, but attributing to Parliament the power of last resort to reject the Prime Minister’s possible dissolution decree within a given deadline, in such a way as to avoid the chambers being held in check or under blackmail by the government.
With such mechanisms it is It’s easy to see how a well-balanced premiership does not at all mean “one man in command” ma bring to fruitioncon adequate constitutional counterweights, what already exists in reality, but works badly because it has no certain rules.
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