Electoral law, appeals to the Constitutional Court: process, times and critical points

The appeals against the electoral law land at the center of the political debate. After the definitive green light in the Chamber of the "Stabilicum", approved with 227 yes against 164 no, the opposition parties will present the initiatives directed to the Constitutional Court on Monday 12 October. The objective, explains Adnkronos, is to submit the reasons for the unconstitutionality of the electoral law desired by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in around thirty Court of Appeal districts throughout the country. Jurists and ordinary citizens also signed the appeals.

The opposition's appeals

Appeals to the Constitutional Court will be filed when the electoral law comes into force, 15 days after publication in the Official Journal. From that moment on, the race against time will begin to reach a ruling from the Council. In the case of a simplified procedure, the courts could set the first hearing after 40 days and evaluate whether to raise the question of constitutional legitimacy. Any order must then be notified to the interested parties, including the Prime Minister, while the first hearing before the Court could be scheduled within 20 days following notification, to be carried out in the following 20 days. The overall process would last about three months. The promoters' objective is therefore to arrive at a ruling from the Council starting from February.

The critical points

There are five points of the electoral reform on which the appeals are concentrated and on which the doubt of possible unconstitutionality is raised. At the center of the dispute is the only partial introduction of the preference system, together with the number of signatures required to present the lists, considered too high. Also under scrutiny are the rules on gender equality, deemed insufficient to fully guarantee it, and the mechanism for assigning the majority bonus. The last aspect concerns the redefinition of the foreign constituencies, with the creation of a single constituency called "Mondo" in the Senate.