Premierate: power of dissolution to the head of government, but overthrow remains possible

Election 'by universal and direct suffrage' of the premier, who remains in power for five years thanks to an electoral system that 'guarantees' a majority of seats in Parliament and who cannot be re-elected after two consecutive terms. And, above all, that he can only be replaced once in the legislature, and only if he himself decides to hand over, by a Member of Parliament who is part of the coalition that won the elections. Translated: no more technical and wide-ranging governments led by personalities not elected by the citizens (read Mario Monti in 2011 and Mario Draghi in 2021, but also Giuseppe Conte in 2018). A minimal retouching of the Constitution, since it is 'only' Articles 92 and 94 of the Constitution that are being completely rewritten, but the effect is that of a true Copernican revolution in our institutional system. "A first step forward to strengthen democracy, give stability to our institutions, put an end to palace games and give back to citizens the right to choose by whom they will be governed," is the satisfied comment on social media by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Net of the direct election, the most relevant novelty of the Casellati bill - which yesterday reached the Senate's first approval amidst protests, including from the streets of the opposition, with 109 yes, 77 against and one abstainer (Senator Durnwalder of the Autonomies) - is the attribution to the elected prime minister of the power to dissolve the Chambers, which is the real deterrent power in political crises, aligning him in this respect with his colleagues in the major EU countries. In short, it will not be possible for the minor parties in the majority to trip over him, nor will it be possible to replace him with a second premier unless this is the will of the elected party. In all cases of resignation, in fact, the premier has three options in front of him: to ask and obtain from the Head of State the dissolution of the Chambers, to try the reappointment route or to pass the hand to another personality of the majority on the English model. And on closer inspection, what the centre-right calls the anti-reappointment rule is not so much anti-reappointment as it is anti-reappointment: there is nothing to prevent the reappointed premier from replacing a rebellious party of the majority with one of the opposition, nor are governments of broad accords impossible in the face of an international crisis.

But is it true, as the government claims, that the powers of the President of the Republic are not touched by the Casellati bill? Formally it is true, indeed his powers are strengthened with the rule that removes the government's countersignature requirement on a whole series of presidential acts (the appointment of judges to the Constitutional Court, the granting of pardons and the commutation of sentences, the decree calling elections and referendums, messages to Parliament and the referral of laws to Parliament), but in political substance his role is greatly reduced. In fact, the resolution of political crises has predetermined outlets in most cases: the Head of State must dissolve the Chambers if the elected premier asks him to do so, thus losing his real political power, which is precisely that of dissolution, and in the event that the premier decides to hand over his hand instead of going back to the polls, the stakes for the appointment of a successor prevent those solutions of technical governments or those of the president that the tenants of the Colle have chosen in recent years.

Admittedly, the last two legislatures have been particularly eventful because the electoral outcomes in both 2013 and 2018 did not produce a certain winner capable of forming a majority. With a majoritarian electoral system that produced a certain winner, the role of the President of the Republic would naturally be reduced: he would simply have to take note of the election result, as happened in 2022 with the clear victory of the centre-right led by Meloni and before that with the victories of the centre-right led by Silvio Berlusconi and the centre-left led by Romano Prodi. The problem, for the critics, is that the Casellati bill designs a system that is too rigid for exiting government crises, whereas more flexibility should be left to deal with any external concomitants such as a pandemic, a serious international crisis or a war.