Analysis of the amendment to the Italian constitution which lowers the voting age for the Senate, against the background of (the lack of) constitutional polic

Palermo, Francesco

English

F. palermo

Catalogo dei prodotti della ricerca

•	Two Almost Identical Chambers Doing the Same Job Twice: On the lowering of the voting age and the lack of a constitutional strategy in Italy

<intR>²Dok

Two Almost Identical Chambers Doingthe Same Job TwiceFrancesco Palermo 2021-07-13T12:02:26On July 8th, the Italian Parliament adopted in the last reading an amendment to theconstitution which lowers the voting age in Senate elections from 25 to 18 years. Atfirst glance, an ode to democracy: the amendment eventually grants the right to votefor the upper chamber of the national Parliament to some 4 million young citizens(18-24 years), making up about 8% of the voters, who so far were entitled to vote forthe lower chamber (House of representatives) but not for the Senate. In reality, theamendment is the (so far) last step of a fragmented and schizophrenic set of reformsthat are gradually dismantling the logic of the constitution of 1948 without proposingan alternative constitutional strategy.The reform follows the one voted by referendum in September 2020, whichreduced the number of the members of Parliament: from 630 to 400 in the House ofrepresentatives and from 315 to 200 in the Senate. Another isolated constitutionalamendment, on a trendy issue (“punishing the elite”: Parliament is among the leastpopular institutions according to polls) with symbolic purposes that may, however,set much bigger and uncontrollable consequences in motion.This time a referendum is very unlikely. The constitution prescribes (art. 138) thata referendum on constitutional amendments can take place only if, in the secondreading, the bill is voted by the absolute but not by the two-thirds majority in one ofthe chambers. Such qualified majority was not reached and therefore one fifth ofthe members of any of the chambers of parliament, 500.000 voters or five regionalassemblies could actually request a confirmative referendum within three months.However, no political party has any interest in calling for a referendum this time: thevoters would massively support the proposal anyway and, unlike with the downsizingof Parliament, this amendment is not the showpiece of any party in particular.Reforms in bits and pieces: constitutionalminimalismLike the downsizing of Parliament, also this constitutional amendment fails inaddressing the structural problems of the Italian system of government, includinga bicameral parliament whose two chambers have almost identical functions. Arevision of the parliamentary system has been on the constitutional agenda in Italysince the early 1980s, but could never materialise so far: a few attempts to adoptcomprehensive reforms have failed for lack of popular support in referenda afterhaving been passed in Parliament, as was the case in 2006 and 2016. The onlysemi-structural reform that could be adopted was the one in 2001, which, however,only concerned the vertical division of powers in the regional state and was the- 1 -leftover of a much broader constitutional reform project from the late 1990s thatcould not be adopted due to eventual disagreements among the political parties thathad originally pushed for the change.The new revision represents the peak of the constitutional minimalism that marksthe history of Italian constitutional amendments. Its content is so minimal that it onlyaffects the first paragraph of article 58 of the constitution (simply removing the tenwords long reference to the voting age for the Senate elections) but not the secondparagraph, dealing with the age requirement to be elected as senator. Accordingly,the right to vote will now be reached at the same age (18) for both chambers, butthe age requirement for being elected remains different: 25 years for the House ofRepresentatives and 40 for the Senate.It is in some respect understandable that the lesson from failed attempts to adoptstructural constitutional reforms has been learned and that consequently only smallamendments are put on the agenda now. Minimalism should however find its limit ina shred of an idea of constitutional policy, and these recent reforms clearly lack one.The reform concerning the shrinking of Parliament by one third of its members wasmerely concerned with cutting the numbers. It completely omitted to address moresignificant aspects of the bicameral system, such as, inter alia, the appropriatenessof constituencies for Italians abroad or of senators for life, the working methods ofParliament and its rules of procedure, the kind of representation that is desirable(political or rather territorial) and the related electoral law: the new design of electoraldistricts and the necessary changes in the electoral law are still pending one yearand a half before the end of term, making early elections currently impossible. Thislowering of the voting age to elect the Senate has been portrayed as a democraticimprovement as it widens the electorate, but its consequences have been completelyneglected in the political debate accompanying the reform.What will be the consequences?The most significant outcome of the reform is to further reduce the already very tinydifference between the two chambers of the Italian Parliament.When the constitution was drafted, the underlying idea behind the compositionand the role of the Senate was very different as compared to now. The number ofthe senators (as well as of representatives) was not laid down in the constitution,the Senate was elected for six years (unlike the Chamber of Representatives, themandate of which lasted five years) and the age requirements to vote and to beelected were much higher than for the lower Chamber. Also, the electoral systemwas profoundly different, and the Senate was originally designed to link the regionswith the centre, albeit in a soft way, privileging political over territorial representation.The significant differences in election, duration and composition between the twochambers compensated for the significant aspects they have in common from theoutset: both chambers have to approve legislation and above all the governmentis subject to the confidence vote of both the House and the Senate, which is whatmakes Italy an exception in comparative perspective. This way, the drafters of theconstitution made sure that both the legislation and the government were supported- 2 -by potentially different majorities and scrutinized by MPs of different age andapproach, creating the conditions for a more reflected and less conflictive decision-making.In the meantime, the mandate of the Senate has been aligned with that of the House(five years), a number of electoral laws have (rather unsuccessfully) attempted tomake the election of both chambers as similar as possible, and the territorial linkof the Senate has been softened even more in many ways, not least by reducingthe number of senators with the mentioned reform in 2020. All these successivereforms have reduced the difference between the two chambers, while at the sametime preserving the common elements. To align the age requirement for electing theSenate is a further step in the direction of creating two identical chambers, with thesame legitimacy and doing exactly the same things. The only remaining (and nowunjustified) difference will be the age requirements for representatives and senatorsto be elected: 25 the former, 40 the latter.Why having two almost identical chambers doing the same job, just twice? Thedebate on bicameralism is going on in Italy for at least 40 years. It has producedmany proposals to differentiate role and composition of the two chambers, withoutsuccess. This set of minimal and fragmented reforms is what such debate hascome up with so far. From a constitutional point of view, the last amendment isdisappointing to say the least. Politically, the amendment has been portrayed asa democratic improvement, but its real main (and after all not shameful) goal is tomake the formation of differing political majorities in the two chambers less likely.The opposite to what the drafters of the constitution had in mind, but times change.At present, and for quite some time now, the priority has become the stability ofthe government, which is more difficult to achieve if two chambers have to expresstheir confidence to it. If the electorate is more similar, there could be some hopethat it casts the same vote for both chambers. Instead, a reform of the parliamentarysystem is a complex endeavour and requires a strategy on a number of delicateissues such as, inter alia, the territorial setup of the country and the mise à jourof political representation (what about discussing the vote at 16, for example, orstrengthening participatory instruments?). And not least, such a comprehensivereform is likely to be voted down by referendum. So, why bother? Let us proceedstep by step, not knowing in which direction, let’s hope for the best and let the nextgenerations deal with the serious issues. For the time being, the next generationsshould make do with being entitled to elect the senators.It could even sound like a strategy. What it overlooks, though, is that small stepsare not neutral and already hint in one direction, thus inevitably conditioning furthermoves and at the same time making them more necessary than ever. What thehistory of Italian bicameralism is witnessing is a long, slow pars destruens of theconstitutional scheme without a pars construens.- 3 -

Two Almost Identical Chambers Doing the Same Job Twice

https://intr2dok.vifa-recht.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/mir_derivate_00010775/Two_Almost_Identical_Chambers_Doing_the_Same_Job_Twice.pdf

Two Almost Identical Chambers Doing the Same Job Twice

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Catalogo dei prodotti della ricerca

<intR>²Dok