Mayor

MAYOR. - In Italian public law the mayor is the head of the local administration, both autonomous and governmental, given that he holds the dual capacity of head of the municipal administration and of government official, thus realizing a clear example of institutional union between the offices of two distinct legal persons: the Municipality and the State. And this dual capacity of his has always assumed a specific importance not only with regard to his complex functions, but also with regard to the procedures for his appointment and his possible removal.

The municipal administration is governed by various honorary elective bodies, two of which are collegial, the Council and the Executive Committee (Giunta), and one individual, the mayor: elected by the Council from among its own members for a term of four years (at its first sitting, by secret ballot and with an elaborate procedure requiring special qualified majorities: Consolidated Law of 5 April 1951, no. 203). The mayor, besides presiding over the Council and the Executive Committee (a smaller body than the former, derived from it by internal election), carries out functions of an essentially executive and representative character, while the deliberative power belongs to the Council. Consequently, the mayor supervises all municipal offices, oversees the discipline of the employees concerned, sees to it that the municipal regulations are observed, stipulates with third parties the contracts deliberated by the Council, signs the documents relating to municipal revenues and expenditures, represents the Municipality in court, etc., and is responsible for his conduct to the Council itself (Consolidated Law on municipalities and provinces of 4 February 1915, no. 148).

As a government official (art. 152 of the Consolidated Law on municipalities and provinces of 1915 and art. 54 of the Consolidated Law on municipalities and provinces of 1934), the mayor finds himself in a position of hierarchical subordination with respect to the State bodies of the branch of administration in which his activity is carried out (as a rule: the administration of the Interior). Thus: he oversees the maintenance of public order, informing the higher authorities thereof, and exercises the functions proper to the public security authority in those Municipalities where it is lacking; he may also issue emergency measures in matters of public works and local police; he attends to the keeping of the registers of civil status, transcribes the documents of the celebration of marriages and may himself celebrate them; he supervises the registry services, those relating to military conscription and the compilation of electoral lists; he may take various measures in matters of public hygiene; etc.

In case of absence or impediment his functions are performed by the assessor delegated by him (or, in the absence of a delegation, by the senior assessor or councillor); while, especially in the larger Municipalities, he delegates to the various assessors the individual branches of the municipal administration. Meticulous legislative rules govern the cases in which the suspension of the mayor from his functions or even his removal from office is necessary (by a reasoned resolution of the Council adopted by a two-thirds majority, or by a measure of the prefect, or by decree of the head of State determined by serious reasons of public order, or by forfeiture following a conviction for a crime entailing ineligibility or, at least, a custodial sentence of more than one year). The mayor may also cease to hold office before the expiry of the four-year term owing to the dissolution of the entire municipal administration, or owing to his voluntary resignation, or following the occurrence of some condition of ineligibility provided for by law. Having regard to the financial capacity of the Municipality and to the burdensomeness of the duties falling to him, a special allowance of office may, finally, be assigned to him, by a resolution adopted by the Council and approved by the Provincial Administrative Executive Committee.

The elective nature of the mayor in Italy dates back to the reform of the local administration carried out in 1888 (before that, instead, he was appointed by royal decree from among the municipal councillors); it lapsed, logically, in the Fascist period, when the laws of 4 February 1926, no. 237 and of 3 September 1926, no. 1910, replaced the mayor with the podestà, appointed by royal decree, on the proposal of the Minister of the Interior; but it was reintroduced again after the liberation, by the legislative decree of the Lieutenant-General of 7 January 1946, no. 1 (later amended by those of 10 March 1946, no. 76 and of 15 March 1946, no. 83).

For certain moral questions concerning the conduct of the mayor called upon to assist at a civil marriage, v. INDISSOLUBILITY.

Paolo Biscaretti di Ruffa