ANALYSIS: Italy Needs Preferential Voting, Electoral Law Overhaul After Recent Referendum

GENOA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th September, 2020) ENOA, September 24 (Sputnik), Anastasia Levchenko - Italy's recent popular vote highlighted the need to get on the path of electoral reforms, including by introducing preferential voting and possibly overhauling the electoral law, experts told Sputnik.

On Monday, Italians voted in favor of changes to articles 56, 57 and 59 of the constitution to cut the number of lawmakers at the nationwide referendum with an almost 70-percent majority. The number of deputies will be reduced from 630 to 400 and the number of senators - from 315 to 200.

The current parliament, however, will serve in its present convocation, as there is no legal obligation to dissolve the chambers right after the vote, Lara Trucco, professor of constitutional law at the University of Genoa, told Sputnik

"It is the very text of the constitutional reform, article 4, that clarifies that even if the YES passes, as has happened, there will be no dissolution of the parliament, because the reform comes into force after the end of the legislature or once the chambers shut down," the expert said.

The vote itself, however, demonstrated people's disapproval of the work of the legislative body, which should launch the beginning of a series of reforms.�

"Obviously if the parliament had worked well, the YES would not have won, voters would not have desired to reduce the number of parliamentarians. It seems to me an affirmation of a failure," Trucco said.

"As the parliament still remains legitimate, there must be some input from it aimed at compensating to a certain extent for the failure that has been brought forth by the voters," she continued.

The referendum is a direct expression of the will of the people, Giancarlo Rolla, professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Genoa and director of its Center for Research on Constitutional Systems, noted. However, many media outlets in Italy did not manage to capture the mood of the population by developing campaigns in favor of the NO vote, according to the expert.

Both analysts believe that the reforms that will follow will evolve in two fields - internal parliamentary regulations and general electoral rules.

"The two chambers should adjust their parliamentary regulations: for example, reduce the number of commissions and increase the number of bicameral commissions and introduce more rigid criteria to avoid too many passages of a parliamentarian from one group to another," Rolla said.

Moreover, the powers of parliament in joint sessions of both chambers, which are needed, for example, to elect the president, must be modified, according to the expert. Repetitive debates should be eliminated, while the powers to discuss confidence or no confidence in the government, dismiss ministers or make decisions of particular political importance � such as the approval of the finance and budget law or European matters � should be increased.

"As far as internal regulations are concerned, they [lawmakers] could very well do it now; the internal regulations of the Parliament are the rules that Parliament sets itself without much media coverage. So, in my opinion, it is the easiest thing to do, even if the Constitution says that the internal regulations must be approved by the absolute majority of the Chambers," Lara Trucco said.

The next stage of the reforms should relate to the electoral system. Not only is it more visible to the public opinion than the internal parliamentary regulations, but it may also trigger subsequent constitutional changes.

"On the topic of the electoral law we will already know something on September 28, when the commission [on the constitutional affairs] of the Chamber of Deputies�will convene to vote on the draft electoral law. The so-called 'Germanicum' or 'Brescellum' will be discussed at the vote of the commission. There are other bills, but the vote will be on this one, which in itself is a good draft, proposing a proportional system, which is what is needed at the moment, because the parliament has lost representativeness and therefore it must be get it back with a proportional and inclusive electoral law," Trucco said.

At the moment, the electoral law of 2017 nicknamed Rosatellum � after Ettore Rosato who proposed it � is in force in Italy. It establishes a mixed electoral system: 37 percent of seats in the parliament are allocated with the first-past-the-post system, and 61 percent with the proportional method � 2 percent of seats are decided by the Italian residents who live abroad by preferential voting.

"Germanicum" is a draft electoral law pushed forward by the Democratic Party (PD), which envisages that out of 400 seats of the Chamber of Deputies, six be decided by the Italian voters abroad, one be elected from the single-member constituency of Val d'Aosta, and the rest by the proportional voting system. Similarly, out of 200 seats of the Senate, four should be chosen by the voters abroad, one in Val d'Aosta, and the rest be decided through the proportional system. It also proposes that a 5-percent threshold be introduced � in the current law it is three percent.

Such a high threshold, as well as the general content of a new electoral law, is a point of contention of all political forces and it will unavoidably take a long time for them to find an agreement.

The initial move, however, that can and should be made, according to Trucco, is adopting preferential voting.

"The first step should be the introduction of preferential voting, which I consider achievable and which should be done as soon as possible. I personally would be for the proportional electoral system because I believe that our Constitution - even more so after the reduction in the number of parliamentarians - provides for the proportional method," Trucco said.

Giancarlo Rolla is also in favor of preferential voting and a higher threshold, which would help avoid an excessive proliferation of parliamentary groups.

"In the ongoing debate there seems to be an emerging idea to move from a majority bonus system to a proportional one (with possible corrections)," he continued.

A fundamental change such as reforming the electoral law may require further constitutional amendments, according to the experts.

"This reform actually affects the entire constitution, because decreasing the number of parliamentarians influences, for example, the election of the President of the Republic, the election of the Constitutional Court, the election of the High Council of the Judiciary," Trucco said.

However, constitutional reforms require approval by two-thirds of parliament, which is hard to achieve in the Italian political reality. That is why new referenda may be necessary. This, in turn, is time-consuming and looks hardly achievable in the remaining term of the current legislative body.

According to Rollo, some single-issue constitutional revisions that will modify the rules on the Senate will be needed. Among them are constituency-based elections instead of region-based ones to have a fair representation of linguistic minorities, extension of the electorate for the Senate to include 18-year-olds to ensure political homogeneity between the two chambers, and a reduction in the number of regional representatives for the presidential election to preserve the balance with the number of parliamentarians.

The Rosatellum electoral law replaced previous laws Porcellum and Itallicum, which were both deemed partially unconstitutional by the Italian Constitutional Court. Another potential change raises the issue of continuity and stability of the political system.

According to Rollo, if the new law is balanced and functioning, it will preserve itself.

"If there are no constitutional defects in it and it is able to ensure representativeness and governability, it should succeed over time, as it happened in the first forty years of the life of the Italian Republic," he said.

Trucco, however, believes more decisive steps might be needed.

"It is one of the key problems," Trucco said when asked how frequent changes of electoral law in Italy can be prevented.

"I have been advocating for the need to introduce an important point in the Constitution: preferential voting. This would be important because the voter would have the opportunity to express his preference. There are some legal systems - such as the German one - in which it is written in the constitution that the method with which you have to vote is proportional," she continued, adding that in Italy, however, it will be very hard to enshrine in the constitution the voting system because there is a great division between various political forces.

An option that she sees in these circumstances is to call a "commission of wise men," a kind of a working group that would consist not only of politicians but also of academics and constitution experts to address this issue.

"The last possibility I see for making an electoral law that is not subsequently modified would be a kind of mandate for the next Parliament on this issue, with the specific task to make reforms and in particular to constitutionalize the electoral system that will be chosen," Trucco said.

"It would be important for the message to be passed on to public opinion that the electoral system must be established once and for all and the principle be included in the Constitution, with the first step being the introduction of preferential voting," she added.