Mattarella: ‘A fundamental principle emerged from the Constituent Assembly: “The Republic belongs to everyone”’

‘I would like to thank the Speakers of the Chambers for taking the initiative to honour – in the presence of the Prime Minister and the President of the Constitutional Court – the women and men who, in the Constituent Assembly – in this Chamber, where its proceedings took place — were able to give shape to the freedom and democracy of the Italian people, in the aftermath of the referendum that chose the Republic as the form of government, and were able to guarantee its independence.” These were the words of the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, speaking on Thursday 25 June in the Chamber of Deputies to mark the 80th anniversary of the first sitting of the Constituent Assembly. ‘A ruling class uncompromised by the Fascist regime – a regime that had jeopardised the very unity of Italia – was able to shoulder the responsibilities of the transition, whilst awaiting the vote. “Despite the ineptitude displayed by the monarchy,” the Head of State recalled, “Italia was not a no-man’s-land. This is to the credit of those women and men.”

‘In his inaugural address to the Constitutional Court on 25 September 1945, Carlo Sforza invoked the memory of the martyrs murdered by fascism – Matteotti, Amendola, Don Minzoni, Gramsci, Carlo and Nello Rosselli, concluding that Italy’s future lay in aligning its interests with those of a peaceful and united Europe,’ recalled Mattarella. The passage was met with thunderous applause.

‘One of the critical interpretations of the work of the Constituent Assembly tended to portray the effort at dialogue and synthesis – which characterised it – as a compromise in the pejorative sense of the term, the outcome of which would have resulted in fragile structures for the Republic. According to those critics, it was nothing more than a barter between the main players – the Christian Democrats, the Socialist Party and the Communist Party – each of which sought to safeguard its own views, if not its own interests. On the contrary, they were guided by a fundamental principle that has gradually become established in the common understanding of citizens: ‘The Republic belongs to everyone’.

‘It was the government representing the forces of the Resistance, led by Ivanoe Bonomi – President of the National Liberation Committee – that, by means of Lieutenant-Governor’s Decree No. 151 of 1944, the so-called Provisional Constitution, which put an end to the ambitions of the dynasty seeking mere continuity, and instead paved the way for an institutional turning point. A transition – as Mattarella emphasised in his address to the Chamber of Deputies – that represented the birth of the new Italian constitutional order. The course of the new Italia would be entrusted to the people, through a Constituent Assembly elected by direct and secret universal suffrage ‘to deliberate on the new Constitution of the State’. A peaceful revolution that led to the transition from monarchy to republic’.

‘The 535 men and 21 women called upon to serve on the Assembly were prepared, working tirelessly for 18 months, to restore Italia to its rightful place, and the result would have been the Constitution which, over the past decades, has ensured the stability of democratic institutions and Italia’s position on the international stage, whilst promoting the country’s progress’, added the Head of State. “The legal state and the real state, with truly universal suffrage, coincided for the first time in the nation’s history,” he observed.