Abstract

The on-going issue of the abuse of decrees of necessity and urgency should be put into the context of the relationship between the Government and Parliament within the Italian institutional framework. Indeed, Italy's constitutional order is traditionally characterised, regardless of the intentions of the framers of the Constitution, by a weak Executive with respect to the legislative branch of government. The (often excessive) use of decrees of necessity and urgency is a (improper) way of compensating for this weakness. The evolution towards a more majoritarian character of Italy's political system together with the maintaining of a formally parlamentaristic institutional framework has resulted in a crisis of the ordinary legislative process. The proposals presented by all the parliamentary groups at the beginning of the 16th Legislature to amend the Italian Parliament's standing orders demonstrate the fact that, in order resolve the problem of decrees of necessity and urgency, one needs to deal with the duration of the legislative process.