Italian Local Government

Abstract

Most works on Italian local government are formalistic and legalistic. In the course of the'unification, 1859-61, the institutions of local government then existing in Piedmont were extended to the rest of the country; these institutions had been borrowed from the French; consequently the formal structure of Italian local government is very similar to the French. The original law on local government was the law of October 23, 1859, sull' amministrazione communale e provincial. Various relations and modifications to this law proposed by the Chamber of Deputies in the period 1862-64 are to be found in Camera dei Deputati, Sessione 1863-64, Documenti, Vol. I. The extension of this system of local government to all Italy provoked considerable opposition, particularly from the northern states. In Milan a school of federalist thought, led by Carlo Cattaneo and G. Ferrari, had a strong following for some time. Cattaneo's works are scattered but show a mind of exceptional quality. The best collection is ed. A. Bertani, Opere edite ed inedite di Carlo Cattaneo (3 vols., Florence, 1890). There is apparently no complete collection of Ferrari's works, but G. Schinetti has edited a small volume of Le piu belle pagine di G. Ferrari (Milan, 1927). The most notable supporter in political life of a different form of regional government was M. Minghetti, Minister of the Interior after the unification. He wrote a book on the subject, Le regioni (Florence, 1867), and his proposed law, with speeches, is to be found in his Discorsi parlamentari (Rome, 1888). In I partiti politici e la ingerenza loro nella giustizia e nell' amministrazione (Bologna, 1881), he developed a theme common to many writers of the period: that much of the malaise of political life was due to the occult influence of territorial groups, forced by the nature of the centralized state to maneuver in Parliament. Three important jurists of the late nineteenth century made similar criticisms in their writings on local government: G. F. Ferraris, Teoria del decentramento amministrativo (Palermo, 1898); G. Saredo, La nuova legge sulla amministrazione communale e provincial (2 vols., Turin, 1889); and Riccomanni, Lo Stato ed i poteri locali (Rome, 1873). A penetrating exposure of the situation which still existed after the Great War is in the Relazione della Commissione Parlamentare d'Inchiesta sull' ordinamento delle amministrazioni di Stato e sulla condizione del personae (2 vols., Rome, 1921). A coordinated and consolidated text of local government laws was issued by the Regio Decreto of March 3, 1934: Testo unico della legge communale e provinciale; an up-to-date version of this was edited by C. Martino and published in 1953 by Ilte in Turin. This text covers the administration, personnel, finance, tutelage, and recruitment of provinces, communes, and the government of Rome. A commentary on the text was made by A. Lentini, Commento al T. U. delta legge communale e provincial (Milan, 1950); the same author discussed the position of local government personnel in his Lo stato giuridico dei dipendenti