Boating schools: capital requirements and minimum fees are unlawful

No to capital requirements and minimum tariffs for nautical schools. In its ruling 133/2026, filed yesterday, the Constitutional Court declared Article 23(1) of Legislative Decree 160/2020 to be unlawful, in the part of the text that introduces – within the Recreational Boating Code and as requirements for carrying out the activity – minimum financial capacity requirements for nautical training institutions and the obligation to adopt a minimum fee schedule for training services.

It was the Lazio Regional Administrative Court that opened Pandora’s box when, in proceedings brought by a company operating in the sailing and boating sectors, had challenged the ministerial decree requiring nautical schools to demonstrate capital or financial resources of not less than 50,000 euros and to adopt a fee structure in line with the minimum amounts set. In the view of the constitutional judges, the grounds for illegality raised were indeed well-founded: the Government had clearly exceeded the limits of the powers delegated by Parliament – as provided for in Articles 76 and 77 of the Constitution – in defining (and imposing) new and stringent parameters for the establishment and management of training programmes. 

The enabling act, in fact, sets out the matters delegated and a series of specific guiding principles and criteria, which place significant constraints on the discretion of the legislator responsible. When the scope of the provision is so narrowly defined, the Constitutional Court emphasised, the literal wording carries greater weight and, automatically, the scope for a more functional interpretation of the text is reduced.

With regard to the enabling act at the heart of the judgement, specifically, the Constitutional Court found no reference – not even an indirect one – to financial and fee requirements for nautical training institutions. Nor did it find any basis for such provisions among the guiding principles and criteria, which refer bureaucratic and administrative simplification only in relation to specific areas, which have nothing to do with nautical schools.

Nor do references to two objectives such as ‘safety of navigation’ and ‘safeguarding human life at sea’ do not serve as grounds for broadening the scope of the enabling act or for justifying either the requirements or the fees. In the judges’ view, however, although safety and harmonisation of the nautical sector are among the aims of the reform of the Recreational Boating Code, they cannot justify the inclusion, within the scope of the enabling act, of matters not provided for and which go beyond the limits set by Parliament.