“Dear President, the right and duty to impose on Senator Matteo Renzi the choice between belonging to the Senate itself or to promotional bodies of other states to which, by your admission, also belongs, falls to the Senate that you preside.” Thus begins the open letter to President Casellati written by a group of constitutionalists, jurists, magistrates, ambassadors, academics, philosophers, university professors and Italian intellectuals. “There is no need for any new law or even a specific parliamentary regulation – the document reads – for him to be required to comply with this obligation. It is clear from art. 67 of the Constitution, according to which ‘every member of Parliament represents the Nation’, and by art. 54 which states that ‘Citizens to whom public functions are entrusted have the duty to fulfill them with discipline and honor’. Not even the judicial procedures concerning him, such as the nature of the governments in whose service he has placed himself, add or remove anything to this obligation, which evidently excludes any double membership “.
«It should be noted – the letter continues – that various government officials from other states – for example, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schroeder – have assumed similar positions, but always after the expiry of their parliamentary and government mandates. It follows that the continuation of the current position of Senator Renzi would constitute a negative precedent for all democratic states, which would reflect on the respect, including international, that the Senate of the Italian Republic deserves. All the more negative on the occasion of the election of the President of the Republic which requires each parliamentarian to make decisions in representation and at the service of one and only one nation ». Among the first signatories of the document Gian Giacomo Migone, Luigi Ferrajoli, Tana de Zulueta, Nadia Urbinati, Francesco Pallante, Anna Falcone, Marco Revelli, Tomaso Montanari, Domenico Gallo, Alfiero Grandi, Mario Bova, Alberto Bradanini, Alfonso Di Giovine, Stefano Bonaga , Livio Pepino, Silvia Manderino.