Revoking life annuities for convicts is not only possible, because they are not a right linked to the parliamentary indemnity, but it is even simpler than one thinks: an ordinary law is not needed, a reform of the regulations of the two Chambers is sufficient. This was underlined by the president of the Senate, Pietro Grasso, in his reply to the president emeritus of the Consulta, Cesare Mirabelli.
"Although admitting that acquired social security rights can be retroactively affected, the complete ablation or loss of pension rights certainly does not find adequate justification", writes Mirabelli in the final part of the opinion addressed to representatives of the Senate Presidency Council. In the seven-page document, sent on 19 February, it is reported that the "constitutional criticalities" of the decision imagined in the form of a possible resolution by the Senate Presidency Council are "multiple and relevant", "the content of which has a greater impact profiles on constitutional guarantees”.
After receiving the document yesterday, Grasso wrote a counter-opinion in his own hand, underlining that “there is no prohibition of retroactivity, which would apply if it were an accessory penal sanction. When a condition of eligibility fails (whether it is morality, connected to a conviction, or Italian citizenship), the prerequisite falls both for the exercise of an office and for the perception of emoluments that are connected to an office that does not can no longer cover. And this must also apply to annuities and pensions”. In short, "if the legal requirements for membership in the Chambers are no longer fulfilled (and this occurs under the Severino law, ed.) the right to the indemnity falls and the right to an annuity falls".
Grasso recalls that the proposal "which I presented to the Presidential Council provides for the cessation of the disbursement of life benefits and pensions in the event that the senator, having terminated his mandate, has been definitively convicted of some of the crimes subject to the new regime of ineligibility. These are sentences of imprisonment of at least two years for particularly serious crimes, such as mafia crimes, some crimes against the public administration, such as embezzlement, extortion and corruption and other very serious crimes such as subversive crimes and terrorism and against the personality of the State, massacre, murder, human trafficking, sexual violence, extortion, money laundering, drug dealing".
As for the opinion according to which a law would be necessary to intervene, for Grasso "it would be paradoxical" to hypothesize, as Mirabelli does, "that subsequent modifications must originate in a different normative source from the source that constituted the institute".
Grasso was joined by the Speaker of the Chamber, Laura Boldrini: "My position on annuities for former parliamentarians - he says - has been clear and known for some time: I personally consider it unacceptable that we continue to disburse them to those who have committed serious crimes such as the mafia and corruption. The decision is now up to the Bureau of the Chamber and the Senate Presidency Council, which I am sure will arrive as soon as possible to deliberate on such a delicate matter, on which there is also great expectation on the part of public opinion”.
