Italy high court paves way for new electoral system News
Italy high court paves way for new electoral system

[JURIST] The Italian Supreme Court of Cassation [official website, in Italian] on Wednesday issued an order making adjustments to former Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi’s [official website] proposed parliamentary electoral reform law, making the law potentially immediately workable. The system laid out by the court applies proportional representation to the Senate’s lower house, the Chamber of Deputies [official website]. With the new ruling, two of the nation’s largest political groups, the Democratic Party [official website, in Italian] and the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement [Business Insider backgrounder], are calling for elections as early as June. However, with the upper house of Senate still using the prior law, immediate elections are unlikely, as President Sergio Mattarella [official website] has said a vote would be improper until the Senate is harmonized.

In December Italian voters rejected proposals [JURIST report] to reform the Italian Constitution to change the structure of parliament and concentrate more power in the centralized government as opposed to the Senate. When that vote failed, Renzi resigned as promised. Renzi had promised political and economic reforms designed to increase stability in Italy, which has had 63 governments since World War II. In November a Rome court rejected an appeal challenging the wording of the constitutional reform referendum [JURIST report]. In April the Italian Parliament allowed [Reuters report] the constitutional reform promoted by Renzi to go forward. In May 2015 the Italian Parliament approved [JURIST report] Renzi’s new electoral rules that provide a majority of electoral seats to a clear winner of an election for prime minister.

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