La decision of the Constitutional Court on the Italicum he will arrive on Wednesday in the late morning, "around 13-13,30", according to what was communicated by the Secretariat of the Consultation itself when the lawyers' arguments ended and the court began to meet in chambers. The meeting will therefore continue until Wednesday morning, when the decision on the electoral law approved in 2015 by the Renzi government will be communicated.
ON WHAT IS THE COURT CALLED TO RULE
The hearing, initially set for October 4 and then postponed until after the referendum on the reforms, must rule on 9 fundamental points of the electoral law approved in 2015 and relating only to the election of the Chamber of Deputies. The crucial ones have always been considered those relating to the majority bonus and the ballot: the law provides that, without any minimum threshold, 340 seats are in any case assigned to the list that obtains, on a national basis, at least 40% of the valid votes or, failing that, to the one that prevails in a round of balloting between the two with the highest number of votes, excluding any form of connection between lists or similarity between the two voting rounds. Maximum attention also on multiple candidates: according to the Italicum, the list leaders can also present themselves in 10 constituencies and then decide in which one to be elected (provided they have the necessary votes).
Here are the other key points:
– Candidate lists: The electoral law provides that the lists of candidates are presented in 20 electoral districts, divided into 100 multi-member constituencies, with the exception of single-member constituencies in the Valle d'Aosta/Vallee d'Aoste and Trentino Alto Adige/Sudtirol districts, for which special provisions.
– Allocation of seats: seats are assigned on a national basis using the method of whole quotients and the highest remainders.
– Barrier threshold: the lists that obtain, on a national basis, at least 3 per cent of the valid votes, have access to the distribution of seats.
– Mixed block of lists and candidacies: the law provides for the composition of lists with one candidate blocked and the others selected with a preference vote.
– Barrier threshold in the Senate: this point refers not to the Italicum but to the consolidated text for the election of the Senate, as modified by the Calderoli law. The regulations provide for different thresholds for the election of the Senate from those envisaged for the election of the Chamber.
– Entry into force: among the rules challenged before the Court, the one according to which the new provisions for the elections of the Chamber of Deputies apply from 1 July 2016.
– Proportional recovery mechanism of votes in Trentino Alto Adige: in the Trentino Alto Adige Region alone, three proportional recovery seats can be assigned to a list not related to any national list or expression of the winning linguistic minority in that Region.
WHO HAS APPALLED
In all, 22 appeals were presented, in particular those relating to constitutionality doubts raised by 5 courts (Trieste, Messina, Genoa, Perugia and Turin) on the key points of the law. The rapporteur of the case is Judge Nicolò Zanon, professor of constitutional law at the State University of Milan, former assistant of Valerio Onida and former center-right layman at the CSM appointed to the Court by Giorgio Napolitano in November 2014. Among the signatories there are also jurists, associations , union acronyms and some parliamentarians of the left Pd.
WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE DECISION
For the Senate, after the No in the referendum on the constitutional reform, the Consultellum is confirmed, i.e. a proportional system with preferences and a threshold of 8%, which emerged from a 2014 Court ruling which declared the previous Porcellum unconstitutional, proportional system corrected by a majority bonus and blocked lists used in three elections (2006, 2008 and 2013). The Consulta declared the partial constitutional illegitimacy of the law, first of all canceling the majority bonus, considered "distorting" representation because it was attributed to the most voted party or coalition without the obligation to reach a minimum threshold of votes. Furthermore, the Court also rejected the blocked lists, introducing the possibility of expressing a preference vote. Even in the Chamber, if the Italicum were to be rejected, there will be a return to proportional representation: there is talk – especially within the Democratic Party – of resurrecting the Mattarellum (a majority with single-member constituencies, attenuated with a quarter of seats assigned with the proportional representation) or of a new electoral law to homogenize the two-chamber system, as requested by almost all the oppositions. But it is not said that there will be a new coordinated law, a connecting law between the Chamber and the Senate could be sufficient.
HOW AND WHEN TO VOTE
The political forces are divided between those who invoke the polls as soon as possible and those who, on the other hand, maintain that the ruling of the Consulta cannot be applied automatically and that, therefore, an agreement will be needed in Parliament to give life to a new electoral law, homogeneous as possible between the House and the Senate.
Of this notice is, for example, the president of the Senate, Pietro Grasso, while former premier Matteo Renzi, M5S and Lega are pushing for an early end of the legislature with a vote between April and May. Precisely in that period, however, there will be the important meeting of the G7 in Taormina, the first of the Trump era (and of what will be the new French president, elected a few weeks earlier), and the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, who plays a key role in the decision, has already hinted that he plans to arrive at that date with a government fully functional. The alternative is to vote after the summer, but among the parliamentarians there are those who push to arrive in October when the right to an annuity is triggered and therefore a natural expiry of the legislature, 2018, cannot be excluded.
Forza Italia, the centrists and the Pd minority want to buy time, which, contrary to the party secretary, is holding back and asking for a broad debate in Parliament.
