Part 4 — CHAPTER XX

THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM

I. The Crown and the Ministry

II. Parliament: the Senate

409. Composition.—Legislative power in Italy is vested conjointly in the king and Parliament, the latter consisting of two houses—an upper, the Senato, and a lower, the Camera de' Deputati. The Senate is composed entirely of members appointed for life by the crown. The body is no true sense a house of peers. Its seats are not hereditary and its members represent not alone the great proprietors of the country but a wide variety of public functionaries and men of achievement. In the making of appointments the sovereign is restricted by the necessity of taking all appointees from twenty-one stipulated classes of citizens, and it is required that senators shall be of a minimum age of forty years. The categories from which appointments are made—including high ecclesiastics, ministers of state, ambassadors, deputies of prolonged service, legal and administrative officials, men who during as much as seven years have been members of the Royal Academy of Sciences or of the Superior Council of Public Instruction—may be reduced, broadly, to three: (1) high officials of church and state; (2) persons of fame in science or literature, or who by any kind of services or merit have brought distinction to the country; and (3) persons who for at least three years have paid direct property or business taxes to the amount of 3000 lire ($600). The total number of members when the Statuto was put in effect in 1848 was 78; the number in 1910 was 383. The last-mentioned number comprised the president of the Chamber of Deputies, 147 ex-deputies of six years' service (or men who had been elected to as many as three parliaments), one minister of state, six secretaries of state, five ambassadors, two envoys extraordinary, 23 officials of the courts of cassation and of other tribunals, 33 military and naval officials, eight councillors of state, 21 provincial functionaries, 41 members of the Royal Academy of Sciences, three members of the Superior Council of Public Instruction, two persons of distinguished services to the country, 71 payers of direct taxes in the amount of 3,000 lire, and 19 other scattered representatives of several categories. The absence of ecclesiastical dignitaries is to be accounted for by the rupture with the Vatican. The last members of this class to be named were appointed in 1866.

III. The Chamber of Deputies—Parliamentary Procedure

413. Composition: Franchise Law of 1882.—The lower legislative chamber is composed of 508 members chosen by the voters of the realm under the provisions of the electoral law of March 28, 1895. In no country of western Europe is the privilege of the franchise more restricted than in Italy; yet progress toward a broadly democratic scheme of suffrage has been steady and apparently as rapid as conditions have warranted. The history of the franchise since the establishment of the present kingdom falls into three periods, delimited by the electoral laws of 1882 and 1895. Prior to 1882 the franchise was, in the main, that established by the electoral law of December 17, 1860, modified by amendments of July, 1875, and May, 1877. It was restricted to property-holders who were able to read and write, who had attained the age of twenty-five, and who paid an annual tax of at least forty lire. Under this system less than two and a half per cent of the population possessed the right to vote.

The law of 1882 provided for elections by general ticket, i.e., on the principle of scrutinio di lista. An act of May 8, 1891, abolished the general ticket and created a commission by which the country was divided into 508 electoral districts, each entitled to choose one deputy. By a law of June 28, 1892, there were introduced various reforms in the control and supervision of elections, and by another of July 11, 1894, new provisions were established for the revision of electoral and registration lists. Finally, March 28, 1895, there was promulgated an elaborate royal decree whereby the entire body of electoral laws enacted since the establishment of constitutional government, and at the time continuing in operation, was co-ordinated afresh. The existing system was not altered fundamentally, although the method of making up the voting-lists was changed, with the result that the number of electors was somewhat diminished.

417. Qualifications and Privileges of Members.—A deputy is not required to be a resident of the district from which he is chosen. He must, however, be a citizen; must be at least thirty years of age; must be in possession of full civil and political rights; and must not belong to any of the classes or professions whose members are debarred by law. All salaried government officials, all persons receiving stipends from the state, and all persons ordained for the priesthood or filling clerical office are disqualified outright. Furthermore, while officers in the army and navy, ministers, under-secretaries, and various other higher functionaries may be elected, their number must never exceed forty, not including the ministers and under-secretaries. Neither senators nor deputies receive a salary or other compensation, a fact that undoubtedly accounts in some measure for the uniformly slender attendance in the chambers. Members are permitted, however, to travel free throughout Italy by rail, or on steamers belonging to lines that have a government contract containing a stipulation upon the subject. Measures providing for the payment of members have been proposed from time to time, but none have received the approval of the two chambers. A measure of the sort introduced in 1882 by Francesco Crispi, when a deputy, was rejected by the lower house. More recently, in the electoral bill voted by the Chamber of Deputies in 1912 provision is made for the payment of deputies; but at the time of writing final action upon this project has not been taken. Deputies are elected nominally for a five-year period, which is the maximum duration of a parliament. In point of fact, a dissolution is practically certain to intervene before the expiration of the full term, and the average interval between elections is nearer three years than five. If for any reason a deputy ceases to perform his duties, the electoral district that chose him is called upon forthwith to elect a new representative.

The president and vice-president of the Senate are designated by the crown, but the president, vice-presidents, and secretaries of the lower chamber are chosen by the chamber itself from among its own members at the beginning of each session, for the entire session. The president of the Deputies, although empowered to appoint certain committees, such as those on rules and contested elections, is not infrequently re-elected again and again without regard to party affiliations, after the manner of the Speaker of the British House of Commons. The membership of the Chamber of Deputies is divided into nine uffici, or sections, and that of the Senate into five. A fresh division, by lot, takes place every two months. The principal function of the uffici is the election of those committees for whose constitution no other provision is made. In each chamber the most important of all committees, that on the budget, is elected directly by the chamber. In the Deputies certain other committees are elected in the same way, while, as has been said, those on elections and on rules are appointed by the president. But committees specially constituted for the consideration of particular measures are made up of members chosen from the various uffici, unless the chamber prefers to designate some other method.

IV. The Judiciary

At the top of the system stand five largely independent courts of cassation, located at the old capitals of Turin, Florence, Naples, Palermo, and Rome. Each of these exercises, within its own territory, final jurisdiction in all cases involving the ordinary civil law. The court of cassation at Rome, it is true, has been given exclusive jurisdiction in conflicts of competence between different courts, conflicts between the courts and the administrative authorities, the transfer of suits from one tribunal to another, writs of error in criminal cases, and a variety of other special matters. But, aside from this, the five tribunals are absolutely equal in function; there is no appeal from one to another, and the decisions arrived at by one do not constitute precedents which the others are obligated to recognize. One of the most striking aspects, indeed, of the Italian judicial system is its lack of centralization; though it should be added that the centralizing principle which, since 1870, has dominated so notably all other departments of the government has been gradually winning its way in the judiciary.

V. Local Government

423. Historical Basis.—In her ancient territorial divisions Italy had once the basis of a natural and wholesomely decentralized system of local government. Instead of availing themselves of it, however, the founders of the present kingdom preferred to reduce the realm to a tabula rasa and to erect within it a wholly new and symmetrical hierarchy of territorial divisions and governmental organs. By a great statute of March 20, 1865, there was introduced in the kingdom a system of provincial and communal organization, the essentials of which were taken over in part from Belgium, but more largely from France. The functions and relations of the various local agencies were amplified and given substantially their present form in the law of December 30, 1888, supplemented and amended by acts of July 7, 1889, and July 11, 1894. So closely has the French model been adhered to throughout that the resemblance between the two systems amounts almost to duplication. The system of Italy calls, therefore, for no very extended independent description.

The units of local government are four in number—the province, the circondaro, the mandamento, and the commune. Of these, the first and last alone possess vitality, distinct interests, and some measure of autonomy; and throughout the entire series runs that same principle of thoroughgoing centralization which is the pre-eminent characteristic of the local governmental system of France. The circondaro, corresponding to the French arrondissement, is essentially an electoral division. Strictly, there are in the kingdom 197 circondarii; but 87 districts comprising the province of Mantua and the eight provinces of Venetia are, in all save name, circondarii also. The 1806 mandamenti, or cantons, are but subdivisions of the provinces for administrative purposes.

424. The Province: Prefect and Council.—There are in the kingdom 69 provinces, varying considerably in size but with an average population of 450,000 to 500,000. The Italian province corresponds closely to the French department. At its head is a prefect, appointed by the crown and directly responsible to the Minister of the Interior. Like the French prefect, the Italian is a political official, and the fact not merely influences his appointment but affects greatly his conduct in office. As representative and agent of the central government the prefect publishes and executes the laws, supervises the provincial administration, opens and closes sessions of the provincial council and sanctions or vetoes the measures of that body, and safeguards in general the interests of the Government in the province.

Within each province is a council of from 20 to 60 members, elected for a period of six years on a franchise somewhat broader than that which prevails in parliamentary elections. One-half of the membership is renewed triennially. The council meets regularly once each year, nominally for a month's session; but an extraordinary session may be convened at any time by the prefect, by the deputation, or upon call of one-third of the councillors. Aside from the voting of the provincial budget, the powers of the council are relatively meager. In part, e.g., in respect to the maintenance of highways, the control of secondary and technical education, and a share in the supervision of charity, they are obligatory; in part they are merely permissive. A deputation, or commission, of from six to ten persons, elected by the council from its own membership, represents the council in the intervals between its sittings and carries on the work which it may have in hand. The prefect is advised by a prefectorial council of three members appointed by the Government, and he is further assisted by a giunta of six members, four of whom are elected by the provincial council, the other two being drawn from the prefectorial council. It is the business of the giunta to assist the prefect and sub-prefects in the supervision of local administration and to serve as a tribunal for the trial of cases arising under the administrative law. The prefect and the giunta possess large, and to a considerable degree, discretionary powers of control over the proceedings of the council; and the prefect, representing as he does the central government exclusively, can be called to account only by his superiors at Rome.