Articles for author: Giacomo Delledonne

A Parliament Shaped by the ‘Worst Election Law Ever’

The campaign for the next Italian general election, scheduled for 25 September, is getting into full swing. In the first half of August, party leaders, especially in the left-of-centre political spectrum, entered into negotiations to decide whether or not to make alliances and form coalitions with other parties; by now, the political offer is clearly defined. A decisive factor during these negotiations were the formal and informal constraints set by the current electoral law, also known as Rosato law or Rosatellum. Some of the defining features of the Rosatellum were heavily criticised, and an ever-recurring refrain in centre-left circles and ... continue reading

Rationalising political representation within the European Parliament: the Italian Constitutional Court rules on the threshold for the European elections

In December 2018, the Italian Constitutional Court found the national 4% threshold for elections to the European Parliament to be constitutional. Unlike the Bundesverfassungsgericht, which focused in-depth on the European state of affairs at a given stage, the Corte costituzionale has pointed to a gradual evolutionary development towards “a rationalisation of the representation of political forces within the European parliamentary assembly”. According to this interpretation, both the national parliaments and the European Parliament face similar challenges.