di Emanuele Rossi

SOMMARIO: 1. I d.l. emanati per il Covid. – 2. Abrogazione di disposizioni di d.l. in sede di conversione ad opera di successivi d.l. – 3. Sugli effetti temporali di tali abrogazioni: abrogazione formale = non conversione sostanziale? – 4. Il momento in cui si determina la mancata conversione in legge del d.l. – 5. La “soppressione”, in sede di conversione, delle disposizioni del d.l. che abroga disposizioni di altro d.l. – 6. La regolazione dei rapporti giuridici sorti sulla base dei d.l. abrogati. – 7. Quattro ipotesi astratte (per ora). – 8. Conclusione (con la speranza che tutto ciò non succeda più).

This essay analyses a practice that has emerged in law-making during the Covid-19 crisis. More particularly, it deals with provisions of a decree-law repealing provisions of a previous decree-law that is still pending before Parliament for conversion into law. These events allow highlighting a number of questionable aspects, which the Committee for Law-Making of the Chamber of Deputies has signalled too: more particularly, they have to do with the effects of the repealed provisions of the decree-law and their subsequent validation on the part of the law that converts the repealing decree-law. The paper analyses the relevant theoretical profiles and assesses them in the light of institutional practice.

di Elisabetta Catelani

SOMMARIO: 1. Premessa. – 2. Il sistema delle Conferenze come strumento per garantire la leale cooperazione. – 3. La Conferenza Stato/Regioni e la Conferenza Unificata nella fase d’emergenza. – 4. La Conferenza delle Regioni e delle province autonome. – 5. Crisi della leale cooperazione. – 6. Conclusioni.

The aim of this contribution is to assess if the principle of loyal cooperation has been effectively respected in Italy or if, the fundamental criteria of the constitutional order have been altered due to the state of emergency leading to a recentralization without an adequate and right reconciliation with the different situations and interests. The focus of this investigation is to further investigate the relationship between the Government and the Regions during the COVID-19 pandemic, but also to highlight their several formal contrasts and the consequences on the institutional actions that determined significant uncertainties to Italian citizens.

di Giovanna De Minico

SOMMARIO: 1. Quadro di riferimento. – 2. Inquadramento della funzione emergenziale. – 3. Apertura dell’emergenza. – 4. Gestione. – 4.1. La sorte del nocciolo duro dei diritti. – 5. Chiusura. – 6. Conclusioni.

The Author reflects on whether and how to draw an emergency clause to be introduced into the constitutional text via art. 138. An emergency clause, neither indispensable nor useless, but appropriate to clarify uncertainties of interpretation, making use of the principles already inherent in the constitutional fabric.
This paper raises some issues: the identity of the Authority entitled to declare the emergency; the type of powers and the limits to the exceptional rules. Among the latter, particular importance is given to the essential core of the rights, unless we understand whether to define them once and for all and in absolute terms or per relationem to the antagonistic right and through the case law of the Constitutional Court.
The work offers a two-track view: on the one hand the hypothetical model of the emergency clause, on the other the concrete management of the Covid-19 pandemic. It remains to be hoped that, if this clause should ever be written, prudence and caution will be required in order to remain within the guidelines of the balance of power and the intangibility of the constitutional identity of the State. Otherwise, in order to avoid the current danger of emergency anarchy, a deep laceration of the Constitution would be caused through a lawful way. Which of the two damages would be the worst?

di Ugo De Siervo

SOMMARIO: 1. Una disciplina emergenziale che deroga temporaneamente per motivi solidaristici a molteplici disposizioni costituzionali. – 2. Le varie modificazioni apportate alla disciplina delle fonti relative agli eventi emergenziali mediante i tre decreti-legge che si sono succeduti. – 3. Il sistema di produzione normativa creato e più volte modificato. – 4. La forza temporaneamente derogatoria della normativa emergenziale. – 5. Il perdurante primato della disciplina costituzionale.

The article describes the institutional measures introduced by the Italian Government to curb the effects of the pandemic emergency from COVID-19. It focuses on the various changes made to the rules related to the lockdown through the decrees-laws no. 6, 19 and 33 of 2020. By depicting the evolution of these measures, the Author underlines the undoubtedly hegemonic role of the Government during this period, which is based more on the use of the decree-laws issued by the Government than on the mere decrees of the President of the Council of Ministers.

di Elena D’Orlando

SOMMARIO: 1. Il binomio ordinarietà-eccezionalità nelle opzioni costituenti: la certezza dei punti cardinali. – 2. La fluidità del riparto delle competenze e i possibili criteri “orientatori”. – 2.1. Lo Stato responsabile e garante delle esigenze di unità … . – 2.2. … segue: nel rispetto del pluralismo che è alla base del sistema democratico. – 3. Prospettive de iure condendo: lo Stato regionale come processo di integrazione.

Abstract

States of emergency naturally put constitutional systems under stress, regardless of whether they are explicitly codified or not. It goes without saying, however, that the fact of whether a constitution provides for a state of emergency is not without consequences in terms of dogmatic reconstruction. Indeed, while, on one hand, explicit constitutional provisions allocate power to constitutional bodies, govern the procedures to be used and determine whether and in what way rights can be limited, on the other, the absence of explicit provisions gives rise to a series of open questions concerning issues related to who is entitled to exert emergency powers, how broad these powers should be and how these powers should be exercised. In such cases, the impact of a break with day-to-day life may be far more problematic. Indeed, this break will probably bring out into the open the distinguishing features of a given legal system i.e. its strengths and weaknesses, its more or less consolidated structural elements as well as its other latent critical aspects.
This article will focus on the repercussions that an uncodified state of emergency may have on Italy’s structure of regional government with specific attention given to the healthcare system. The aim of this contribution is to prevent us from losing the thread of a debate concerning the need for a profound, deliberate and bipartisan rethinking of regional government. The need to retune and consolidate the notion of loyal collaboration, in terms of where and how this is implemented, should be at the center of our attention so to find a synthesis between unity and autonomy and thus attain an acceptable model of sustainable differentiation

di Erik Longo

SOMMARIO: 1. Introduzione. – 2. Le scelte di fondo. – 3. Tre episodi per descrivere i passaggi più importanti del rapporto stato-regioni durante l’emergenza covid-19. – 3.1 Episodio 1: l’instaurazione di un meccanismo collaborativo nelle materie protezione civile e salute. – 3.2 Episodio 2: dalla collaborazione «attenuata» alla collaborazione «cedevole». – 3.3 Episodio 3: dalla “fragile” collaborazione alla fine del lockdown. – 4. Tre momenti emblematici del conflitto stato-regioni. – 4.1 Se telefonando io potessi… obbligarti a collaborare: il caso Marche. – 4.2 Ci ho ripensato, in Campania il jogging è vietato. – 4.3 I tavoli all’aperto in Calabria e la successiva sentenza del TAR Catanzaro. – 5. Riflessioni conclusive.

The spread of the new Coronavirus in the spring of 2020 upended nearly every aspect of public law as we know it. Day after day, the emergency generated by the COVID-19 infection has taken on the appearance of a “perfect storm”. Few people imagined the physical impact of the current epidemic for law, yet SARS-Cov-2 is a “sovereign” virus, as someone has called it. Against this backdrop, this paper intends to take into consideration what happened on the side of relations between state and regions in Italy. The health emergency represented a justification to build an unprecedented structure of relations between State and regions, whose formation is still in progress while writing. There has been a gradual emergence of a new architecture of institutional powers – away from the constitutional configuration of center-periphery relations – for the sake of the rapid and effective solution of problems related to the pandemic. This situation has produced new conflicts among state, regional and municipal powers. The paper is divided in two parts. The first is dedicated to give an overview of the situation and to describe the evolution of legislation from the point of view of “loyal collaboration.” The second is devoted to examine three distinctive episodes of the state-regions conflict that have had an epigone before Italian administrative judges. The work ends with an insight into the fate of Italian regionalism after the COVID-19 emergency.

di Paolo Caretti

di Andrea Cardone

SOMMARIO: 1. L’eterno ritorno degli spettri dell’emergenza. – 2. La «normalizzazione» dell’emergenza e la rimodulazione del rapporto tra decreti-legge e ordinanze extra ordinem. – 3. La gestione alternativa dell’emergenza, tra ibridazioni del potere d’ordinanza e nuove formule normative. – 4. Il problematico contenuto dei d.P.C.M. alla luce delle norme attributive del potere contenute nei decreti-legge. – 5. La “mela avvelenata” della straordinarietà del caso e dell’adeguatezza di una gestione ad hoc. – 6. La “fuga” dal sistema delle fonti di protezione civile: la necessità come fonte del diritto è davvero la soluzione?. – 7. La derogabilità del sistema delle fonti di protezione civile: ha senso costituzionalizzare l’emergenza?

In the context of the COVID crisis, Italy has witnessed a spate of extraordinary legal measures pressed by executive discretion, with a multitude of problems related to proper limitation of constitutional freedoms, relations among State, regions and municipalities, as well as difficult adaptation of the Parliament to this new reality. Against this background, this article tries to shed light on two problems: on one hand, the configurability of “necessity” as a source of law and, on the other, the necessity/opportunity of incorporating an “emergency clause” into the Italian Constitution. After having recalled the constitutional framework and analyzed the numerous decree-laws, ordinances and decrees issued during these months, the article argues that the major problem in the current crisis is the departure from the constitutional principles, rules and procedures created by legislature and administrative case-law in more than twenty-five years since the creation of the National Civil Protection System, which has efficiently and proportionally governed cases of emergency so far.

di Marta Picchi

SOMMARIO: 1. Premessa. – 2. Il contesto. – 3. Il d.l. n. 6/2020. – 4. Il d.l. n. 19/2020: problemi superati ... – 5. Segue: … e problemi insorti. – 6. Il d.l. n. 33/2020: ulteriori problemi di coordinamento tra fonti. – 7. La produzione regionale di ordinanze contingibili ed urgenti: una prima considerazione. – 8. Ulteriori riflessioni per concludere.

The decrees-law adopted by the Government to deal with the epidemiological emergency have introduced a sanctioning regime that has gradually evolved creating some problems of coherence in the system of sources and with constitutional principles. This essay focuses on the problems that have arisen regarding the punitive power of the Regions and carries out some observations in the light of the impressive number of ordinances that the Presidents of the Regions have issued.

di M.Cristina Grisolia

SOMMARIO: 1. Il rapporto Governo-Parlamento negli stati di emergenza alla luce dei principi costituzionali e della legge ordinaria. – 2. Il difficile funzionamento delle Camere all’inizio dell’emergenza Covid-19 ed i problemi legati all’organizzazione dei lavori. – 3. Le ipotesi avanzate e le prospettive future.

The essay examines the relationship, during the Covid-19 period, between the Government and the Parliament in exercising law activity in light of Constitution and ordinary laws and it highlights the deficiencies and shortcomings.  At the end the essay examines the proposed hypotheses.

di Giovanni Tarli Barbieri

SOMMARIO: 1. Considerazioni introduttive. Il rinvio delle elezioni: un fenomeno mondiale e problematico alla luce dei principi costituzionali. – 2. Il rinvio delle elezioni in una prospettiva comparata. – 3. Il rinvio delle elezioni nell’esperienza italiana prima del 2020. – 4. Il rinvio delle consultazioni previste per la primavera del 2020. – 5. L’uso del decreto legge per il differimento delle elezioni. – 6. I contenuti del d.l. n. 26/2020: il rinvio delle elezioni. – 7. Segue: gli altri contenuti del d.l. n. 26/2020. – 8. Il rinvio del referendum costituzionale e la prospettiva del suo accorpamento alle elezioni regionali e locali. – 9. Lo “strano caso” del rinvio delle elezioni regionali valdostane. – 10. Il rinvio delle elezioni dei Sindaci e dei Consigli comunali nelle Regioni a statuto speciale. – 11. Per concludere: l’emergenza COVID-19 e l’esigenza di una semplificazione delle procedure elettorali.

The essay reconstructs the most relevant constitutional problems deriving from the postponement of the electoral consultations (Decree-Law no. 26/2020) and of the constitutional referendum about the reduction of MPs (art. 18 of Decree-Law no. 18/2020). The use of the decree-laws will be analysed with reference to the postponement of the constitutional referendum and the regional elections. In the end, the paper underlines the controversial and specific events of the Valle d’Aosta Region and the different choices made by Autonomous Regions with special statute in the case of Mayors and Municipal Councils’ election.

di Gian Luca Conti

SOMMARIO: 1. Lo Stato moderno e la sua crisi: dopo il terremoto, la pandemia. – 2. La conversione di taluni (non tutti) i decreti-legge pandemici, fra aporie atomistiche e mozioni omnibus. – 3. Istruttoria legislativa e smarrimento di senso del Comitato per la legislazione: la prospettiva della riduzione dei parlamentari. – 4. Necessità e urgenza: un sindacato avvolto dal segreto. – 5. Mala tempora incumbunt?

The pandemic, like the Messina earthquake, requires us to investigate the reasons for the crisis of the "modern" state. At the time, these reasons were identified essentially in the difficulty of ensuring adequate political representation for the interests expressed by the world of economics and work. The solution was the Carnaro Charter and things didn't go too well. Now, the problem lies in some details of parliamentary law (decreti-legge that repeal other decreti-leggi with very complex consequences for the constitutional theory ; amendments that become agendas without a body able to check their respect by the Government; the practice of maxi-amendment leading to a de facto mono-chamber; the Copasir which judges on the situation of extraordinary necessity and urgency which has led to an unprecedented limitation of constitutional freedoms and fundamental rights). The true legacy of the pandemic is not only having given health as a value capable of overwhelming any other constitutional value, but also having entrusted the task of defining the hierarchy between constitutional values ​​to the Government, bypassing the Parliament’s role, which has reduced to approving a motion calling for a return to the decree-law (19 May 2020).
Mala tempora incumbunt?

di Giuseppe Mobilio

SOMMARIO: 1. Considerazioni introduttive: il decreto-legge tra i molteplici canali di produzione normativa emergenziale. – 2. Il rispetto dei requisiti costituzionali. – 3. Il decreto-legge come fonte sulla produzione per l’emergenza. – 3.1. Atti a livello statale. – 3.2. Atti a livello territoriale. – 4. Il riflesso dei d.P.C.M. sui diritti fondamentali e sulla sistematica delle fonti. – 5. Perché decreti del Presidente del Consiglio e non decreti-legge?. – 6. Considerazioni conclusive.

The essay examines the use of the decree-laws to challenge the pandemic emergency due to Covid-19. First, it is verified whether the Government respected the conditions put by Italian Constitution in order to enact decree-laws. Once analyzed these problematics, the essay describes how decree-laws have been used to alter the regime and the nature of many other sources of law, influencing the strategies of all the other territorial levels of government. Then, the essay focuses on the differences between decree-laws and decrees of the President of the Council of Ministers, underlines the abuse of the latter and the consequences on fundamental rights, and investigates if a wider use of decree-laws to assume many crucial decisions to trigger the Covid-19 epidemic would have been more respectful of the Constitution. Finally, the paper highlights some needs to be considered by a hypothetical reform of the emergency sources of law.

di Gianmario Demuro

SOMMARIO: 1. La democrazia e la forma dello Stato. – 2. Fallimento della regolazione statale dell’emergenza. – 3. La riserva assoluta di legge statale nella regolazione della libertà di circolazione. – 4. Lo Stato deve rispettare la differenziazione in emergenza?

This paper discusses the impact of COVID-19 emergency on the Italian regionalism

di Stefania Baroncelli

SOMMARIO: 1. Introduzione - 2. La didattica a distanza (DAD) - 3. La disciplina normativa sulla didattica a distanza in periodo di emergenza - 4. Inclusione e DAD - 5.DAD, esami di profitto online e questioni legate alla privacy - 6.DAD, università e corsi di studio telematici – 7. Conclusioni.

At the end of February 2020, following the spread of the Covid-19 virus, Italian universities and schools, with a few days' notice and planning, closed the buildings and converted the teaching activities, which were in presence, to distance learning. In addition to teaching activities, internships, laboratories, degree exams, as well as student orientation, research seminars and conferences became telematic. How was distance learning (DAD) established? How is DAD reconciled with the need for inclusion and protection of privacy recognized by the Italian Constitution and the European regulatory framework? After outlining the ways in which the DAD is provided, the article dwells on the provisions issued during the emergency period, going into detail on how to ensure the inclusion of all students and some regulatory issues relating to the protection of the principle of privacy for online teaching and assessment, distinguishing the solutions identified during the emergency period from those valid for online courses of study.

di Nicola Lupo

SOMMARIO: 1. Premessa. – 2. Le origini, tra Governo e Parlamento. – 3. Il parere del Comitato per la legislazione. – 4. Il dibattito sull’inserimento di norme di delega (e di proroga delle medesime) nei disegni di legge di conversione dei decreti-legge. – 5. Un caso di “sciatteria” del legislatore, in tempi di Coronavirus?

The contribution focuses, in a critical way, on the content of Art. 1(3) of the Law 24 April 2020, No 27 (converting the Decree-Law 17 March 2020, No 18), which provides an "unnamed" extension of all pending legislative delegations. It reconstructs its parliamentary process, content, effects and main problematic profiles.

di Giuseppe Verde

SOMMARIO: 1. Considerazioni introduttive: l’emergenza sanitaria e le regioni. – 2. La Sicilia di fronte al Coronavirus. – 3. Il potere di ordinanza del Presidente della regione. – 4. Le ordinanze del Presidente della regione: alcune indicazioni generali che emergono dalla prassi. – 5. Il “recepimento” e la consentita “applicazione” dei d.P.C.M. in Sicilia. – 6. L’emergenza sanitaria e l’art. 31 dello Statuto speciale. – 7. Segue. – 8. Le ordinanze del Presidente della regione: gli aspetti più significativi. – 9. Le misure aggiuntive disposte in Sicilia. – 10. Alcune considerazioni sulle misure aggiuntive disposte con le ordinanze del Presidente della regione.

The contribution describes the legal framework outlined by Law Decrees No 6/2020 and 19/2020 to connect State and Regions decisional process during Covid-19 pandemic emergency. It then critically examines form and content of Orders issued by the President of the Sicilian Region during the emergency.

di Pietro Milazzo

SOMMARIO: 1. Emergenza “simmetrica” e clausole generali costituzionali sull’emergenza. – 2. Il “doppio canale” dell’emergenza in Francia: clausole costituzionali ed état d’urgence legislativo. – 3. La reazione normativa francese all’emergenza sanitaria del 2020. Il nuovo état d’urgence sanitaire nel sistema delle fonti. – 4. La lezione francese sul “rendimento” delle clausole costituzionali sull’emergenza. La garanzia costituzionale ed il rischio del “fucile di Čechov”.

This article starts from the fact that the Italian Constitution does not provide for a clause governing states of emergency, although the constitutional and administrative rulings has defined over time the constitutional dimensions of the emergency in our system. The absence of a constitutional clause on the emergency has often been assumed as one of the reasons that caused - during the 2020 health emergency - a certain degree of confusion in the source system and an excessive centralization of powers in the hands of the government. That said, the article examines the reaction of the French legal system to the emergency induced by the Covid-19 epidemic with the aim to verify whether and to what extent the presence of explicit constitutional provisions on the emergency has affected the regulatory management of the emergency itself. The paper concludes that the presence of constitutional clauses does not always seem able to prevent the emergence of special emergency regimes, rising from the specificity of the particular emergency.

di Roberto Bartoli

SOMMARIO: 1. Tre premesse. – 2. Anticipazione delle problematiche conclusioni. – 3. La legalità penale prima del coronavirus. – 4. La legalità penale al tempo del coronavirus. – 5. La legalità punitivo-amministrativa prima del coronavirus. – 5.1. Il potere punitivo amministrativo degli enti locali. – 5.2. Il potere punitivo amministrativo attribuito alle autorità indipendenti, ma non alla protezione civile. – 6. La legalità punitivo-amministrativa al tempo del coronavirus. – 7. La riserva di legge relativa: un confronto tra costituzionalisti e penalisti. – 8. La linea e l’ellisse.

The management of the emergency through the relative law reserve poses quite a few legitimacy problems, especially when the prohibitions are punished with a punitive administrative sanction and consist of limitations which, in normal circumstances, would constitute a regular and full exercise of rights, that is when such prohibitions, in the absence of covid, they would constitute real punishments for the exercise of rights, as such liberticides. The Author offers a contribution to the reflection on the subject from a criminal law perspective, hoping - among other things - for the operation of an absolute legal reserve when, in emergency situations, the bans punished with a punitive administrative sanction pertain to the exercise of rights

di Laura Buffoni

SOMMARIO: 1. Il tradimento dei chierici. – 2. Lo stato di eccezione: la forza di legge. – 3. La Costituzione e la forza di legge. – 4. La Costituzione e il potere d’eccezione. – 5. Hors de la Costitution? – 6. Il diritto invalido.

The essay focuses on the relation between decrees with legal force and the state of exception, investigating the philosophical and constitutional theories involved. The essay aims to verify the compatibility of the covid-19 pandemic’s emergency regulation with the Italian Constitution.