REGIONS. – The new Italian Constitutional Charter proclaims that the Republic is “one and indivisible,” yet it “recognizes and promotes local autonomies,” including regional ones (arts. 115 ff.). The “regional State” thus occupies an intermediate position between a federal State and a State with mere administrative decentralization, inasmuch as the regions are recognized as autonomous entities with their own functions.
The regions undoubtedly have constitutional relevance because they are provided for, regulated, and guaranteed by the Constitution, with the possibility of recourse to the Constitutional Court (art. 134), and because they possess certain partial powers relating to the constitutional order of the State itself (such as participation in the election of the President of the Republic, art. 83, as well as legislative initiative, art. 121).
The normative sources of the regions are: 1) *Statutes*. Each region adopts its own statute (approved by the regional council by an absolute majority of its members), which is then approved by a law of the Republic. Statutes for certain special regions (Sicily, Sardinia, Valle d’Aosta, Trentino-Alto Adige, and, in the future, Friuli-Venezia Giulia) are adopted by constitutional laws (they are therefore not manifestations of autonomy but juridical acts proper to the State; that is, statutes “given” to the regions rather than “laid down” by them, unlike the others mentioned first). 2) *Regional laws*. With regard to their own organization and the municipal districts within them, and particularly on: local urban and rural police; fairs and markets; public charity and health care and hospital services; artisan and professional education and school assistance; museums and libraries of local bodies; town planning; tourism and the hotel industry; tramways and motorways of regional interest; inland navigation and lake ports; mineral and thermal waters; quarries and peat bogs; hunting; fishing in inland waters; agriculture and forests; crafts and other matters indicated by constitutional laws. The autonomy of the special-status regions is broader. 3) *Regional decree-laws and legislative decrees* (which seem implicitly envisaged by art. 134, though their legitimacy is debated). 4) *Regional regulations*, analogous to the general regulations of the State; these may, among other things, concern the execution not only of regional laws but also of national laws when these entrust their execution to the region by specific provisions.
The regions, as envisaged by the Constitution, are 19 in number: Piemonte, Val d’Aosta, Lombardia, Trentino-Alto Adige, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Liguria, Emilia-Romagna, Toscana, Umbria, Marche, Lazio, Abruzzi e Molise, Campania, Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria, Sicilia, Sardegna.
The regions have, along with their own demesne and assets, financial autonomy as determined by laws of the Republic, which “coordinates it with the finances of the State, the provinces, and the communes.” They may not, however, institute import, export, or transit duties among themselves; adopt measures that in any way hinder the free movement of persons and goods; or restrict the right of citizens to exercise their profession, employment, or work anywhere within the national territory.
The organs of the region are: 1) the Regional Council, elected according to the system fixed by a law of the State and enjoying special penal protection (cf. art. 283 of the Penal Code in the new wording established by a law of 1947). 2) The Executive Board (Giunta), elected by the Council from among its members; it is the executive organ of the region. 3) The President of the Executive Board, also appointed by the Council, who represents the region, promulgates regional laws and regulations, directs the administrative functions delegated by the State to the regions, and conforms to the instructions of the central government.
Within the region there are also to be established (by a forthcoming law of the State) organs of administrative justice of first instance (with possible detached sections in different localities of the provincial capital), in substitution of the present Provincial Administrative Boards in their judicial capacity.
The President of the Sicilian region participates in the Council of Ministers, in matters concerning the region, with a deliberative vote (the Presidents of Sardinia, Valle d’Aosta, and Trentino-Alto Adige have only a consultative vote). The widest autonomy is that of Sicily. Its statute (which from the outset, and subsequently in some respects, has posed delicate problems of constitutional legitimacy) was drafted and approved by the local provisional Consultative Assembly, then submitted to the national Consultative Assembly, issued by royal decree-law of 15 May 1946, no. 455, and finally entered into force as “part of the constitutional laws of the Republic under the terms and for the purposes of art. 116 of the Constitution” (Constitutional Law of 26 Feb. 1948, no. 2); it applies to Sicily, including the Aeolian, Pelagie, Ustica, and Pantelleria Islands. The organs of the Sicilian region are the Assembly (which corresponds to the “Council” of the other regions), the President, and the Executive Board, all elected within the Assembly and together forming the government of the region. In addition to broader legislative autonomy, Sicily has special judicial and administrative organs (Council of Administrative Justice for the exercise of consultative and jurisdictional functions proper to the sections of the Council of State; Audit Section and Jurisdictional Section of the Court of Auditors; High Constitutional Court).
The national Consultative Assembly had proposed to the government that the Sicilian Statute be extended to Sardinia, but the provisional Sardinian Consultative Assembly, invited by the national government to draft its own project, discussed and reworked it in the competent constituent body and adopted it by Constitutional Law of 26 Feb. 1948, no. 3.
The Valle d’Aosta has had its own administrative organization since a legislative decree of 1945; the Statute adopted by Constitutional Law of 26 Feb. 1948, no. 4 draws on this and subsequent amendments, with some developments. The territory of the Valley lies outside the customs line and constitutes a free zone. The French language is placed on an equal footing with Italian; official acts may be drawn up in either language, except for those of the judicial authority, which must be in Italian. State administrations in the Valley must employ officials who are natives of the locality or who know French. The President of the Executive Board is responsible for maintaining public order, either by delegation or according to the provisions of the government of the Republic, to which he is answerable, using both State police and local police units. In the provincial capital there is a coordinating commission composed of a representative of the Ministry of the Interior (who presides), a representative of the Ministry of Finance, and another from the Valley, to exercise control over the legality of the administrative acts of local bodies and to promote any reconsideration of such acts. The Administrative Jurisdictional Board exercises the powers of the analogous provincial boards in matters of administrative appeals and tax litigation.
The discipline of the autonomy of Trentino-Alto Adige was formulated with due regard to the De Gasperi-Gruber political agreement (Paris, Sept. 1946), aimed at establishing relations between the Italian and German peoples on a basis of mutual satisfaction, while safeguarding Italy’s sovereignty. The President and Vice-President of the Regional Council must respectively be Italian-speaking and German-speaking in the first two-year term, and vice versa in the second; the composition of the Giunta must reflect the linguistic groups as represented in the Council. While the principle that the official language is Italian remains firm, the use of German in public life is legally guaranteed (in conformity also with art. 6 of the Constitution, which provides for the protection of linguistic minorities); the Region is in turn bound to ensure the teaching of Ladin in the elementary schools of localities where it is spoken.