V. Part III - Citizens’ Bill

Part III of the Bill deals with the citizen’s Bill, the details being outlined in Articles 19-22. The present legislation already provides for citizens’ bills; the major innovations are as follows:

- Instead of the President of the Council, the Commission for participation shall evaluate the admissibility of the bills and the regularity of the signatures (Article 20.2 and 20.5), thus ensuring in theory[1] a more independent scrutiny. ()

- The Bill introduces some changes in the grounds for inadmissibility of a citizens’ bill. According to the Code of Good Practice,[2] “texts submitted to a referendum must comply with all superior law”, as under the principle of the rule of law, the electorate is not exempt from compliance with the law.^[3] A citizens’ bill on provincial laws, which may be eventually submitted to referendum (Article 20.6), must therefore be in accordance with the Italian Constitution and legislation, the Special Statute for Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, as well as with international law and not least with the Council of Europe’s Statutory Principles (democracy, human rights and the rule of law).^[4] Article 20 of the Bill is insufficient, as a citizens’ bill shall be declared inadmissible only when in conflict with the norms listed in Article 20.2.a-e of the Bill.

Subject matters excluded from a citizens’ bill disappear in the Bill. For instance, in the current 2003 law budget and taxation are excluded matters. From a comparative perspective, it can be noted that laws on citizens’ bills often feature this kind of exclusions, for example in Spain. However, this is not the case in Italy at national level (Article 71 of the Constitution) or in the neighbouring province of Bolzano (provincial Law 18 November 2005, n. 11, Article 4). However in all these cases the citizens’ bills are not linked with the popular initiative.

- A public hearing may take place if it is requested by the proponents. They may require the participation on such public hearing of the members of the Council and the government (Article 21). The public hearing promotes more intensive public debate on the bill with the participation of the population interested in the bill.

- A popular initiative as the last step or conclusion of a citizens’ bill. There are two hypotheses in the Bill: 1) If the contents of a citizens’ bill have been distorted by the Council (“is approved…with substantial changes”), a popular initiative “may” be demanded by the proponents (Article 22), leaving the last decision to the people. The – difficult - decision about the meaning of substantial changes belongs to the Commission for participation. 2). It is also unclear whether the rejection of the bill by the Assembly would amount to “substantial changes” – if not, it seems that the rejection would be final. On the contrary, when the initiative has not been passed by the Council (“fails to approve or reject”) in the 14 months following the introduction of the bill, the citizens’ bill “is” mandatory (Article 20.6).

[1] See above par. 20.

[2]III.3.

[3] Code of Good Practice, explanatory memorandum, par. 32.

[4] See Code of God Practice, explanatory memorandum, par. 33.