(Finance) – Five questions were accepted, three were rejected. There Constitutional Court it expressed itself on the referendums that will be voted on on a Sunday between April 15 and June 15. In the matter of justice, the questions regarding the repeal of the provisions on the subject of non-compliance (Severino law) were accepted; the limitation of precautionary measures; the separation of the functions of the magistrates; the elimination of the lists of presenters for the election of the togates of the CSM; the recognition in the judicial councils of the right to vote of lawyers on the professionalism assessments of magistrates. Pending the filing of the sentences, expected in the next few days, the Press Office of the Court has made it known that these questions “were considered admissible because the respective requests do not fall within any of the hypotheses for which the constitutional order excludes the appeal. to the referendum institution “. On the other hand, the question on the direct civil liability of judges is inadmissible as it would have been an “innovative rather than abrogative” referendum. A separate discussion should be made for the other two quashed questions concerning the murder of the consenting party (on which the decision arrived yesterday) and the cultivation of narcotic substances. Presented to public opinion as a referendum on “euthanasia” and “cannabis”, in reality they were about something else. So much so that, at a press conference, the president of the council, Giuliano Amato– reiterating that the Court does not judge on the merits – he also went so far as to recommend the correct formulation of the questions.
DIRECT CIVIL LIABILITY OF THE MAGISTRATES – “We have declared inadmissible the referendum on the direct civil liability of magistrates because, fundamentally – anticipated Amato – the rule of indirect responsibility has always been the rule for magistrates, or rather the State is mentioned and then there is the revenge of the magistrate, the introduction of direct responsibility makes the referendum more than abrogative, innovative “.
MURDER OF CONSENTER – “You want Article 579 of the Criminal Code (murder of the consenting party) to be abrogated, approved by Royal Decree no. 1398 of 19 October 1930, paragraph 1 limited to the following words” imprisonment from six to fifteen years. “; Paragraph 2 in full; paragraph 3 limited to the following words ‘Do they apply’? “. Presented by the promoters as a referendum on “euthanasia”, the referendum question asked, in fact, to allow impunity for the murder of a consenting person as long as they are of age and capable of understanding and willing. With the partial repeal of article 579, the text would have turned out to be the following: “Whoever causes the death of a man, with his consent, is punished with the provisions relating to murder [575-577] if the deed is committed: Against a person under the age of eighteen; Against a mentally ill person, or who is in a condition of mental deficiency, due to another infirmity or the abuse of alcohol or drugs; Against a person whose consent has been extorted by the culprit with violence, threat or suggestion, or stolen with deception “. As the Court found” following the repeal, even if partial, of the law
on the murder of the consenting person, to which the question aims, the minimum constitutionally necessary protection of human life would not be preserved, in general, and with particular reference to the weak and vulnerable “. Speaking of euthanasia, Amato clarified that” it is a question to be resolved “but he stressed that with the question presented, which did not refer only to people in a state of suffering, we would have paved the way for” other cases for which we would all have been responsible “.” I tell you something that I could not say : who knows that by presenting the question not in the form of a referendum question but as a question of the constitutional legitimacy of article 579 – said Amato – it would not be possible to treat it as we have treated 580 (assisted suicide). This Court decriminalized assisted suicide under certain conditions. “Amato finally renewed an invitation to Parliament to legislate on euthanasia.
AMAZING SUBSTANCES – “Do you want the decree of the President of the Republic of October 9, 1990, n. 309, to be repealed, concerning” Consolidated text of the laws on the discipline of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of the relative states of drug addiction ” , limited to the following parts: Article 73, paragraph 1, limited to the phrase “coltiva” and to the
the words “for any reason” and “for any purpose or in any case illegally holds”; Article 73, paragraph 4, limited to the words “imprisonment from two to 6 years and”; Article 75, limited to the words ‘a) suspension of the driving license, of the certificate of professional qualification for driving motorcycles and of the certificate of fitness to drive mopeds or prohibition of obtaining them for a period of up to three years;’? “. As Amato pointed out in the press conference, the error contained in the text presented by the promoters of the referendum is sensational. drug addiction “in paragraph 1” Illicit production, trafficking and possession of narcotic or psychotropic substances “states: Anyone, without the authorization referred to in Article 17, cultivates, produces, manufactures, extracts, refines, sells, offers or sells , sells, distributes, trades, transports, procures to others, sends, passes or ships in transit, delivers for any purpose narcotic or psychotropic substances referred to in the tabe lla I provided for in article 14, is punished with imprisonment from six to twenty years and with a fine of between € 26,000 and € 260,000 “. Cannabis is not listed among the substances indicated in Table I, which is instead found in Table II. With this formulation, the referendum question asked, therefore, to allow the cultivation of other substances including opium, coca leaves and alkaloids with an exciting action on the central nervous system that can be extracted from them. Paradoxically, however, it would not have allowed the cultivation of cannabis. Among other things, the joint criminal sections of the Cassation, in the council chamber of December 19, 2019, have already established that “small-scale cultivation activities carried out in a domestic form do not constitute a crime. Cultivation activities that for the rudimentary techniques used , the scarce number of plants and the modest quantity of obtainable product appear to be destined exclusively for the personal use of the grower “. “If the question had been referred to Cannabis and its personal use – concluded the President of the Council – it would have been more than admissible, I have no doubts”.