Abstract

The article critically examines the constitutional judgment No. 196/2018 of the Constitutional Court pointing out the importance of this decision for both the Italian indirect form of constitutional review of legislation and the role of administrative controls. The case originated from a referral order initiated by the Court of Auditors, Regional Control Division for Liguria, within the budgetary compliance proceedings concerning the general closing statement for financial year 2016 of Liguria Region. The Court ruled the legislation unconstitutional insofar as the region had violated the Article 117 of the Constitution in establishing a new special category of civil service director, and in reallocating spending in order to remunerate such staff. After an analysis of the decision of the Court concerning the admissibility of questions of constitutional legitimacy within budgetary compliance proceedings, the article examines the argumentation of the Constitutional Court drawing attention to the consequences of this judgment for the external controls of the Court of Auditors. In particular it stresses that the Court has utterly changed the nature of budgetary controls from «collaborative» to «neutra», which demonstrates a significant departure from the reforms developed in the Italian legal system so far.