Fifty years of referendums: in the book edited by Chimenti the vademecum towards the vote on justice

As many as 81 times in little more than 50 years, from 1974 with the first and very important popular vote in favour of divorce until last June with the failed vote for lack of quorum on Jobs act and citizenship. There have been 77 abrogative referendums, only 4 constitutional ones: two reforms approved by the Italians (the reform of Title V in 2001 and the reduction of the number of parliamentarians in 2020) and two rejected ones (the major reforms of the second part of the Constitution wanted by Silvio Berlusconi in 2006 and by Matteo Renzi in 2016).

With only a few weeks to go until the confirmatory referendum on the constitutional reform by Nordio, which introduces the separation of careers between prosecutors and judges and divides the Csm in two (voting will take place between the end of March and the beginning of April), the history of the main instrument of direct democracy in our country is critically retraced in a book just published by Giappichelli and edited by Anna Chimenti entitled Le stagioni del referendum, la democrazia diretta tra populismi e social media. There are authoritative contributions, mainly by constitutionalists, starting from the introductory part entrusted to Enzo Cheli, who, among other things, relaunches some proposals for reform of the instrument to overcome "referendum abstentionism used programmatically" in order to make abrogative referendums fail, as has almost always happened in the last 25 years: "Some corrections and adjustments to the current discipline are necessary and can be summarised in these primary aims - writes Cheli in the introduction alongside the abrogative referendum of a propositional referendum linked to the exercise of the popular legislative initiative power; in increasing the weight of the referendum demand with an increase in the number of requesting subjects to be involved through the use of digital techniques; in the elimination or lowering of the structural quorum".

Particularly topical, given the confirmatory referendum on justice this spring, is the chapter on the Italians' vote on constitutional reforms by Stefano Ceccanti and Francesco Clementi. In this case, unlike abrogative referendums, there is no quorum, but it is a fact that three times out of four the 50% mark has been exceeded, reaching 64% turnout in 2016 (only in 2001 did just over 34% of Italians vote on the federalist reform of Title V made by the centre-left). This is a sign that when it comes to the Constitution, Italians want to have their say clearly, and who knows if this will not also be the case on the referendum on justice.

The risk of politicising the referendum is, however, even stronger in the case of referendums on constitutional reforms, as taught by the case of Renzi, who called for a political vote on his government and was forced to resign from Palazzo Chigi after the defeat. Hence Ceccanti and Clementi's warning, with an eye to the next referendum, which risks turning into a vote for or against the Meloni government, thus losing sight of the issues of merit: "The constitutional referendum is a precious instrument of Italian democracy, conceived by the constituents as a guarantee of balance and participation. However, its concrete application has shown limits, distortions and improper uses, which have reduced its effectiveness and increased the risk of political conflict,' Ceccanti and Clementi write. 'It therefore needs to be better managed precisely so as not to weaken popular sovereignty, but to strengthen it, making it an effective instrument of responsible participation, in a mature constitutional democracy, whose judgement is actually on the merit of the proposed innovations and not a 'test' on the pro tempore government'.

Politically significant is the chapter edited by Claudia Mancina, a philosopher, entitled 'The Left and Referendums', from which it emerges how the PCI since the time of Palmiro Togliatti and his subsequent transformations has had an essentially conservative attitude towards the innovations proposed by the questions: from the initial reluctance on divorce, mainly due to the fear of compromising the relationship with the DC at the time of the historic compromise and more generally the relationship with the Catholic electorate, to the clear political defeat in the referendum on the escalator wanted by the then premier Bettino Craxi.