Policy

Todde disqualification, the court rejects the appeal. The president of Sardinia: 'We appeal the sentence'

The ball on the disqualification of the President of the Region Alessandra Todde passes, once again, to the Regional Council

28 May 2025

Il ministro dell’Ambiente e Sicurezza energetica Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, la presidente della Regione Sardegna Alessandra Todde e il presidente della Regione Piemonte Alberto Cirio sul palco del Gran Teatro La Fenice., durante il dibattito della terza ed ultima giornata del 4° Festival delle Regioni e Province Autonome, Venezia 20 maggio 2025. ANSA/ANDREA MEROLA NPK

3' min read

Appeal rejected. The ball on the decadence of the President of the Region Alessandra Todde passes, once again, to the Regional Council. The court of Cagliari has rejected the appeal presented by the lawyers of the governor, addressee of a disqualification injunction issued by the Regional Electoral Guarantee College, which included, among other things, a fine of 40,000 euros for alleged irregularities in the accounting of election expenses.

The objections

The regional board of guarantors had accused the governor of irregularities in the reporting of campaign expenses for the February 2024 vote. The disqualification order, after being notified to the President of the Region, had been sent to the Regional Council, which, however, had postponed any decision pending a final ruling. This was followed by an appeal against the act. The appeal to the Civil Court with the first hearing last March.

Final hearing on 22 May

On 22 May the final hearing and the pronouncement of the sentence declaring the other interventions inadmissible and "rejecting Alessandra Todde's appeal against the College's injunction order".

The Judgment

The judges wrote: "In this regard, first of all, it should be noted that the contested order did not order the disqualification, but, believing that the violations ascertained entailed such a consequence, ordered the transmission of the documents to the President of the Regional Council. Not only that: 'It must be confirmed here that it is not within the competence of the Collegio di Garanzia or of the Court hearing the appeal against the order-injunction to pronounce any disqualification of the appellant'. Then the further passage: 'Competence is referred by law to the Regional Council'. The operative part continues: "To the administrative body of control and then to the judicial body, which does not intend to go beyond the scope of its competences, is referred exclusively the ascertainment of the violation of the rules on electoral expenses,' it reads. Once this examination, which remains unchallengeable by the Regional Council, has been carried out, the latter will make its determinations on the disqualification, taking into account what has been ascertained in this case.

Constitutional Court decides on 9 July

On 9 July, meanwhile, the Constitutional Court will meet to discuss the conflict of attribution raised by the region against the State regarding the national law regulating disqualification cases for administrators: in other words, it will have to clarify whether the national law used by the electoral college judges to rule in January that Todde was disqualified was applicable to a region with a special statute such as Sardinia.

The ball is in the Regional Council

It remains to be seen what will happen now at the Regional Council once the device arrives. In any case, the political battle has already broken out with the centre-right going on the attack. "The ruling confirms what we have always maintained: a legislature that was already dead from a political point of view is now also dead from a legal point of view,' comments Paolo Truzzu, Fdi group leader in the regional council and defeated in 2024 by Alessandra Todde. 'We are not happy about this, because we think that politics should always have primacy, and that we should not wait for the judges' choices. But now the voters must have their say again'.

The Region's President Alessandra Todde replied: 'Unlike those who choose to clash with the judiciary, we respect the role of judges and their decisions, even when we do not agree with them, as in this case. Precisely because we believe in the rule of law, which provides for three levels of judgement, we have the right and duty to defend ourselves in the trial, not from the trial. Therefore, we are going ahead: we are challenging the sentence, because the contested violations do not exist, as the Court of Auditors and the Cagliari Public Prosecutor's Office have also found'. The governor then adds: 'Firstly, the Court says that the College of Guarantees was incompetent to rule on the disqualification. So we were right.

However, the judgement has several questionable and controversial points, which our lawyers are in the process of evaluating, but as of now we can see how some passages are inconsistent'. Then one last passage:

"This is a battle that is fought in the courts. And there we will fight it. I am in the fullness of my duties, and I intend to honour them to the end."