La qualità della legislazione nelle Regioni: il caso umbro

di Nicola Pettinari

SOMMARIO: 1. Qualità della legislazione: la rilevanza e le tappe di un percorso ‘multilivello’. - 2. Il ruolo della valutazione e delle attività istruttorie nella produzione normativa in Umbria. Un quadro generale. - 3. La valutazione ‘ex ante’: il difficile cammino dell’AIR (3.1 La sperimentazione AIR sulla ‘Disciplina della raccolta, coltivazione, conservazione e commercio dei tartufi’: un caso esemplare. 3.2 Riflessioni sul fallimento della sperimentazione: il peso della ‚cultura politica‘ sulle innovazioni al procedimento legislativo) - 4. Consultazione e concertazione: tra ‘partecipazione’ e ‘ascolto’ dei destinatari delle norme in fase di progettazione legislativa. Punti di forza e criticità. - 5. Clausole valutative: sulla via di una cultura della valutazione. - 6. Il Comitato per la legislazione - 7. Testi unici, semplificazione e riordino normativo.

This article investigates to which extent (and to which degree of effectivity) the Region of Umbria implemented principles and instruments of the quality of legislation within its law making procedures. The theme of the quality of legislation is a priority in the legislative policy of the European Union and this has been widely poured into the so-called Statutes of ‘new generation’ of the Italian Regions - issued after the Reform of Title V of the Italian Constitution - and into regional norms (in the context of a 'multilevel governance' model where the role of the regional law-making process is crucial). Based on this assumption, the present study consists in an analysis oriented to investigate what role was assigned in the regional sources of law - especially in the new Statute of the Region of Umbria (2005) and in the regional laws - to instruments such as Regulatory Impact Assessments (RIA), 'ex post' evaluation, evaluation clauses, and to operations of normative reorganization and simplification. Moreover, the regional sources have been analyzed by highlighting their connection with national norms and legal provisions from the European Union, in order to understand the actual degree of integration between regional legislation and other legislative levels. The theoretical reconstruction mentioned above was also integrated by the analysis of a case study concerning a RIA experimentation carried out by the regional Junta. What emerges from this case study seems to confirm that the legislation in Umbria shows a trend typical of the Italian Regions, in the context of which the actual insertion of the observed instruments is - except for rare cases, e.g the Region of Tuscany - far from being definable as an element widespread or institutionalized within the processes of formation of regional laws. In most cases, in fact, those instruments represent only formal and rhetorical elements within statutory or legislative provisions (a remarkable role in influencing and determining this phenomenon is played by meta-legal factors, first of all - like in the case of Umbria - by the dominant political and legal culture). Nevertheless, next to the failure of the attempt of implementation of the RIA and of ‘ex post’ evaluation strategies, it seems to emerge a progressively increasing recourse to significant interventions capable of producing positive effects (in terms of democracy and effectiveness), such as evaluation clauses and operations of normative reorganization and simplification. The reconstruction proposed here attempts to provide a complete picture of the current state of the art in Umbria, examining the critical points emerged as well as the innovations introduced, with the aim to highlight what kinds of challenges are urgently essential in the legislative policy and governance of this Region