«Why was the limit of twenty-five hours specifically chosen?» Gaetano Troina (D-ML) has questioned the new mechanism during the examination of the articles of the bill “Amendments to the Rules of Procedure of the Grand and General Council” (Consiglio Grande e Generale).
According to Troina, setting an equal cap for any measure, without taking into account the subject matter or the complexity of the law, risks creating problems when applied in practice. The councillor also defended the debate that has developed over the years during the examination of budget laws, recalling how some opposition amendments led to measures that were ultimately shared by all.
Finally, Troina raised a technical doubt about the wording of Article 7: in his view, it is not sufficiently clear whether, once the motion provided for after the 25 hours is approved, the amendments in question must still be put to a vote or are automatically rejected.
Below is the full statement by Gaetano Troina (D-ML):
Gaetano Troina (D-ML): I share the reflections made by my colleagues on this article, because limiting parliamentary debate on a law to a set number of hours, regardless of the type of measure or the topic being addressed, objectively risks creating paradoxes that we will inevitably come to notice if we proceed in this direction. I thank my colleagues for having carried out a thorough review of the examples related to the last budget law, because, as far as I can recall, on every occasion of the December sessions dedicated to the state budget, dialogue between the majority and the opposition has always produced useful regulatory outcomes that both sides could agree on. I understand that in that context a kind of tug-of-war develops to demonstrate one’s own political strength, but no one can claim that the opposition amendments accepted on those occasions were harmful or created difficulties for the country. On the contrary, they often produced positive results and introduced articles or clauses capable of solving real problems for citizens. I thank my colleague Santi for recalling one of our proposals. Also accepted was the reduction of the registration tax on a first home for blended families — a measure that is far from irrelevant, considering how many blended families exist in our Republic. That said, the time allowed to discuss this article is very limited. One is first led to ask why the limit of twenty-five hours specifically was chosen, as if, the moment the twenty-fifth hour strikes, the hourglass runs out of its last grain of sand and the discussion must end immediately. I would also like to point out that, in my view, paragraph 1 and paragraph 2 are not consistent with each other. It is established that, once twenty-five hours have passed since the start of the examination of the law, an absolute majority of councillors may file a motion to put to a vote the set of amendments they do not wish to support. Paragraph 1 therefore states that the amendments are to be put to an immediate vote. Paragraph 2, however, provides that, after the motion is presented, each group is to deliver a fifteen-minute explanation of vote, and that if the motion is approved, this results in the definitive rejection of the listed amendments, while the examination of the remaining articles continues. It is therefore unclear what actually happens: once the motion is approved, are the amendments not supported by the majority actually put to a vote, as paragraph 1 seems to suggest, or do they automatically lapse, as paragraph 2 seems to indicate? As currently written, it is not clear. It will be interesting to see the first application of this article, to understand how you intend to interpret it.
