The critical editorial by the former constitutional judge Sabino Cassese, published this morning by the "Corriere della sera" on the recent and controversial ruling of the Consulta on the stop to the automatic equalization of pensions which risks overturning unsustainable burdens on the state coffers, is one of those destined to leave their mark and perhaps also guide the choices that the Government will have to make on the subject. Both for the reasons and for the prestige of the author.
Cassese openly maintains that the Consulta, which decided in this way only by virtue of the double vote of its pro-tempore president, had many other alternatives ahead of it other than the pure cancellation of the stop on the automatic equalization of pensions above the minimum decided at the time of emergency in the country by the Monti government.
The Court "could have repeated the warning (the formal notice that the Court makes when it does not want to produce the immediate and traumatic effects that derive from an annulment), already made previously in the field of pensions, as has happened in recent years in the field electoral". Or he could have carried out what in the jargon is called a "called sentence", that is, establishing the principle of the revaluation of pensions also equal to three times the minimum "but leaving it to the government and Parliament to choose how to proceed: as he has done many other times". Or again he could have graduated its effects.
Lastly, the Consulta "could have - this is Cassese's final thrust - not behave like Jupiter Pluvius, by having the bodies of expenditure found before the fact".
What comment does Cassese's editorial suggest? Or that the narrow majority of the Court is made up of self-referential judges and completely lacking in the sense of the State or that, deliberately, intended to trip up the Renzi government, pace of independence from political power and the inevitable applause of Grillo and Salvini.
