I decreti-legge nel primo dopoguerra, nelle letture dei giudici e dei giuristi

di Nicola Lupo

SOMMARIO: 1. Premessa. – 2. Le letture del decreto-legge in epoca statutaria. – 3. Cenni alla prassi: l’esplosione dei decreti-legge durante la prima guerra mondiale. – 4. Le reazioni giurisprudenziali: in particolare, le figure di Luigi Lucchini e Ludovico Mortara. – 5. La risposta del legislatore: la legge n. 100 del 1926. – 6. Qualche conclusione (anche in chiave “attualizzante”): sulle difficoltà ad arginare i nuovi “abusi” del fenomeno… – 7. … e sull’ipotesi recente di una riforma elettorale con decretolegge.

This essay – which constitutes the revised text of an intervention held in Pisa during a seminar jointly organised by Scuola Normale Superiore and Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna – aims at re-examining the decree-laws in Italy after the First World War, especially with reference to the readings of judges and legal scholars. It starts by recalling the main arguments used to justify the adoption of these Executive acts of urgency under the application of the Albertine Statute, which prevented the King from violating the legislation in force. Then, it looks at the judicial reactions originated by the very intense use of these acts during and immediately after the First World War, putting into lights two legal scholars who were, at the same time, high judges as well as politicians: Luigi Lucchini and Ludovico Mortara. And later on it sees the reply that the legislator offered to this judicial reaction, especially through some provisions of the law no. 100/1926. In the conclusions, some more updated reflections are proposed, regarding the application and the interpretation of the specific provision on the decree-laws present in the Republican Constitution. In particular, in order to acknowledge the recurrent difficulty to limit the abuses of these Executive acts and to criticise, also on the basis of the case law of the Constitutional Court, the very recent proposal aimed at adopting the new electoral law through a decree-law.