In the face of the crisis, the Government invites you to give up your holidays in order to launch packages capable of reviving the economy and the country. A request for overtime that comes at the end of a not exactly exceptional year, for those who have to make the laws. It must and should, but looking at the data it seems obvious to argue that - at least until now - this has not been the case. 2011 is the year that for the moment sees the Parliament "poor" in terms of provisions dismissed and meetings convened.
The data are the official ones, published on the websites of the Chamber and the Senate, and leave no way out: both branches have so far recorded the lowest number of plenary sessions since the beginning of the legislature, and produced a number of regulatory provisions higher than only the first year of legislature, which began in a year already well under way. Data in hand, the analysis of Parliament's activity is here: since the beginning of the legislature, 7.197 bills of various kinds have been presented to the Chambers (ordinary, linked to manoeuvres, ratifying international treaties, constitutional, etc.), the most of them ordinary (6.731).
Of these, just 398 have been approved by at least one of the two houses of Parliament since the beginning of the legislature (225 in the Senate and 173 in the Chamber). The figures show a Parliament 'clogged' with measures (an average of 1.799 bills presented each year), but not very productive, with an average of not even 100 texts approved per year (99,5). And for the year that has just ended, the data are no better: of 907 bills presented in Parliament (332 in the Senate and 575 in the Chamber), just a tenth – 90 – were approved by one of the two branches (47 in the Senate and 43 in the House). In these parliamentary branches, in little more than three years, the bills approved and transformed into law between the votes of the House and the commission, were 823 (382 in the Senate and 441 in the Chamber), 198 of which were dismissed in 2011 (88 in the Senate and 110 in the House).
The numbers of the Parliament seem to be explained by the time it takes to make the bills. In fact, since the beginning of the legislature, the Senate has taken an average of 8 months (247 days) to approve bills initiated by parliament, the Chamber even one month longer (274 days, practically 9 months). From 2008 to today, however, it has taken only one month, on average, to convert government-initiated bills into law (34 days for the Senate, 29 for the Chamber). But the times, in 2011, lengthened, and by a lot: for the bills of parliamentary initiative in both branches it took more than a year to get approval into law (482 days in the Senate and 455 in the Chamber), while for government-initiated bills, the executive had to spend almost two months in the Chamber (50 days) and even more than two months in the Senate (73 days).
Long times that seem to be explained also by the activity of the Chamber and Senate, at least since the beginning of the legislature. In fact, in 2011 the Deputies Chamber met just 99 times, as never happened since the beginning of the legislature, in 2008. That year the lowest number of Assembly sessions was recorded, 108, but work started at April, i.e. when the year has already begun. This year, on the other hand, from January until the end of last week, it didn't even reach 'triple figures'. As a consequence, the amount of work is also less: the 99 sessions (compared to the arithmetic average of 128, given the 512 total sessions since the beginning of the legislature) have in fact required 517 hours and 56 minutes of debates and votes.
Same story in the Senate: in 2011 the Senate Hall held 113 sittings for a total of 297 hours and 56 minutes of work (against a four-year average of 149), less than in 2008, when the political class began working in April and by the end of the year there were 121 sessions. Obviously there is time to do more: just roll up your sleeves from the beginning of September, when the House and Senate will reopen their doors.
