During a’sanitary emergency il Prime Ministerial Decree is considered the “central instrument of government”. It’s written in black and white in the draft of the new one pandemic plan 2024-2028the first elaborate by the Ministry of Health of Meloni government. The decree of the President of the Council of Ministers is that same instrument as one’s own Giorgia Meloni defined “blatantly unconstitutional” when it was the government led by who used it, in the midst of the Covid pandemic Giuseppe Conte. Phrases that today come into conflict with the provisions of the new pandemic plan, which defines the vaccines as “the most effective preventive measures” and which provides, “in emergency conditions”, the possibility of “imposing limitations on the freedoms of individuals in order to protect the health of the community”. The circulation of the draft, published by Daily Healthcarewas welcomed like this by opposition protests: M5s and Pd recalled how the Prime Minister, when she was in opposition, attacked them precisely for the use of vaccines and lockdowns and, instead, “now she perfectly follows the measures decided by the Conte government during the pandemic”.
What Meloni said – In the midst of the pandemic and during the first lockdown, the March 23, 2020, the leader of the Brothers of Italy defined it as “un relevant precedent” the “limiting of people’s personal freedom through decree of the Council of Ministers”. “We are a democracyit is essential that any limitation of individual freedom or movement is decided by the Parliament and not by government decree”, wrote Giorgia Meloni on social media as she left Palazzo Chigi after being received – together with the other opposition representatives – by the then Prime Minister Conte. Not only that: a few weeks later, Meloni is still there first signatory to the agenda presented on 12 maggio 2020 in the Chamber of Deputies. This time he goes so far as to define “adoption through decree-law of Prime Ministerial Decrees which provide for the compression of fundamental rights” as in “blatantly unconstitutional given the fact that – we read – the Constitution itself operates one clear legal reservation on these aspects”. On the same agenda, the Fdi leader therefore asked the government “not to intervene in the future on the exercise of fundamental freedoms of citizens neither with the instrument of the decree-law, nor, much less, through decrees of the President of the Council or of individual Ministers, and to submit to the preventive parliamentary approval any measure that contemplates a possible limitation of fundamental rights and freedoms”.
What does the pandemic plan include – What la legitimacy of the use of Prime Ministerial Decrees in the event of a health emergency, already confirmed by the Constitutional Court, is reiterated by the new pandemic plan to clarify the picture. In the part concerning the “legal regulatory instruments” for “emergency coordination” it is noted that “when faced with a pandemic of an exceptional nature, the need and theurgency to adopt measures relating to each sector and the necessary central coordination than only the President of the Council of Ministers can carry out due to its own position of guarantor of the political and administrative direction unit which ensures by promoting and coordinating the activities of the ministers (art. 95 of the Constitution)”. In the new pandemic plan it is underlined that “the traditional instrument of the contingent and urgent ordinance adopted by the Minister of Health” while “maintaining a central role in emergency management”, “it appears not sufficient for the overall governance of the multiplicity of interests and sectors affected by the health emergency”. This explains why focusing on the decrees of the President of the Council of Ministers and their legitimacy: “The choice of the Prime Ministerial Decree as central instrument of government of the health emergency – we further read – therefore reflects the constitutional position of the Prime Minister as guarantor of the unity of direction of government action and the balancing of multiple public interests”.
“Italy like Hungary” – Meloni, however, considered it an “unconstitutional instrument” recalling that Italy is “a democracy”. A concept that he adapted even when the March 30, 2020 sent a press note to defend the Hungarian president Viktor Orbánharshly criticized in those days for the approval of a law that gave him the full powers: “If anyone hadn’t noticed yet – wrote the Fdi leader – in Italy the government has declared a state of emergency, suspended the elections and the referendum and the regional and local elections have been postponed. With blows of Prime Ministerial Decree the individual freedom of citizens, including parliamentarians and magistrates, as well as that of business and commerce has been limited and special measures have been introduced in every area”. For Giorgia Meloni, therefore, the Italian situation was identical to that of Hungary: “It is surprising that someone scandalise today why Orban adopts
extraordinary measures, not particularly different from those adopted by Italy with even a smaller mandate from Parliament”. The same “full powers” thanks to which Orban has foreseen, among other things, the repression towards critics, he deprived theopposition also part of the funding for parties in addition to the forecast of arrestssearches and fines of thousands of euros for those who express dissent towards the government.