Abstract

Judgment no. 100/2023 of the Constitutional Court found the issue of constitutional legitimacy regarding article 4, paragraph 3, of regional law Valle d’Aosta no. 6/2022 to be well-founded. The issue was raised due to a violation of article 2, letter b), of the special statute and article 97 of the Constitution: in a regulatory context that had already provided for certain categories of individuals an exception to the principle of public competition, the regional law introduced an additional exception, exempting the same categories of individuals from attending specific training courses and passing the related final exams. After reconstructing the regulations for the recruitment of local authority secretaries in special Regions and the recent precedents of the Constitutional Court, the judgment in question provides an opportunity for some more general considerations on the subject. In particular, the contribution highlights three main arguments in support of the non-derogability of public competition for access to the qualification of local authority secretary. Moreover, it specifies the reasons why a different conclusion is not sustainable, even considering the difficulty in finding suitable candidates, adduced in some cases by the legislators of special Regions to justify the exceptions introduced to the principle of public competition.