President Sergio Mattarella signed the Simplification Decree, but accompanied the signature with a letter to the Presidents of the Chamber and Senate and to the Prime Minister in which he underlined how "various provisions" are not attributable to the original purposes and invites the Government "to monitor so that during the parliamentary examination of the decree-laws, rules that are clearly heterogeneous with respect to the object and purpose of the emergency measures are not inserted ".
Finally, it represents "to Parliament the need to operate in such a way that the amendment activity is carried out in full coherence with the content limits deriving from the constitutional provision".
"I proceeded with the promulgation above all in consideration of the relevance of the provision in the difficult economic and social situation", underlines Mattarella in the letter to Roberto Fico and Elisabetta Casellati, with which he explains the reason for his findings to the Simplification dl and the reason that led to it in any case to sign the provision.
"The President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, promulgated the conversion law of the decree law 16 July 2020, n. 76, containing" Urgent measures for digital simplification and innovation "and at the same time sent a letter to the Presidents of the Senate of Repubblica, Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, of the Chamber of Deputies, Roberto Fico, and to the President of the Council of Ministers, Giuseppe Conte.
Here is the text: "Today, for the promulgation of the law for the promulgation of the decree law 16 July 2020, n. 76, containing" Urgent measures for simplification and digital innovation, was submitted to me.
The provision, originally composed of 65 articles, for a total of 305 paragraphs, at the outcome of the parliamentary examination is composed of 109 articles, for a total of 472 paragraphs.
As specified in the preamble, the decree-law intends to correspond to the dual need to facilitate investments and the construction of infrastructures through a series of procedural simplifications, as well as to introduce a series of simplification measures in the field of digital administration, responsibility of administrative staff , entrepreneurial activity, environment and green economy, in order to face the economic fallout resulting from the epidemiological emergency from Covid-19.
The text presented to me, with the amendments made in parliament, however, contains various provisions, including in particular those contained in article 49, amending fifteen articles of the Highway Code, which are not attributable to the aforementioned purposes and do not comply a matter originally governed by the provision.
Law no.
400 of 1988, an ordinary law of a legal nature also aimed at implementing article 77 of the Constitution, includes homogeneity of content among the requirements of the decree-laws.
The Constitutional Court has repeatedly referred to compliance with this requirement.
Lastly, in sentence no.
247 of 2019, the Court observed that "The conversion law is a source functionalized to the stabilization of a provision having the force of law and is characterized by a specific and simplified approval procedure compared to the ordinary one. It cannot therefore be open to any content 96-bis of the regulation of the Chamber of Deputies, in particular, as required. Under penalty of being used for purposes other than those justifying the act with the force of law, the provisions introduced during the conversion they must be able to connect to the content already governed by the decree-law, or, in the case of government measures with multiple content, "to the dominant ratio of the original provision considered as a whole" (sentence no. 32 of 2014) ".
In the case in question, through a single amendment approved by the Senate Commission on the merits at first reading, significant action was taken on a discipline, road traffic, which, among other things, has immediate repercussions on people's daily lives.
The amendment was therefore transfused into the broader amendment entirely replacing the single article of the provision, a text on which the Government, both in the Senate and in the Chamber, has raised the question of trust.
I proceeded with the promulgation above all in consideration of the relevance of the provision in the difficult economic and social situation.
However, I urge the Government to ensure that during the parliamentary examination of the decree-laws, rules that are clearly heterogeneous with respect to the object and purpose of the emergency measures are not included.
I also represent to Parliament the need to operate in such a way that the amendment activity is carried out in full consistency with the content limits deriving from the constitutional provision ".
"In the preamble, the decree-law intends to correspond to the dual need to facilitate investments and the construction of infrastructures through a series of procedural simplifications. The text presented to me, with the amendments made in parliament, however, contains various provisions, including in particular those contained in article 49, containing the modification of fifteen articles of
the Highway Code,
which are not attributable to the aforementioned purposes and do not pertain to matters originally governed by the provision ", writes the President of the Republic.