Lo scioglimento dei consigli comunali e provinciali per infiltrazioni della criminalità di tipo mafioso: vecchi e nuovi dubbi di costituzionalità, in attesa di una riforma dell'art. 143 del TUEL

Under article 143 legislative decree n. 267/2000 (Local Authorities Act), the central government has the power to dismiss the municipal and provincial councils infiltrated or conditioned by mafia or by other criminal organizations, with two main consequences: 1) the ineligibility (exclusively for the first of the local elections after the dissolution) of the officials who have given rise to the closure, declared by the civil court through a closed session proceedings; 2) the appointment of a special commission empowered for the exercise of local government’s activities until the renewal of the councils. The Courts consider such a measure an act of “high administration”, also characterized by “a significant political value”, which responds to a need of extreme democratic defense against organized crime. The Constitutional Court, in ruling n. 103/1993, held that article 143 does not conflict with the Constitution, because the governmental decision is supposed to be intended as a sanctioning measure, addressed to the elected bodies. Nevertheless, it is worth asking whether the principle stated by the Constitutional Court can still be regarded as a crucial key. Furthermore, the article takes into account the development of the Italian new legal framework, where a number of elements have been deeply modified: 1) the role of the municipal councils, which is no longer at the top of the local authority (so that council’s dissolution can no more be an effective tool to contrast conditionings or criminal infiltrations); 2) the existence of a comprehensive law on ineligibility resulting from criminal conviction (legislative decree n. 235/2012), which could give raise to a sense of unreasonableness reading back article 143, where the same result comes out from an administrative measure.

L'articolo esamina criticamente il testo e le interpretazioni dell'art. 143 del Testo Unico degli Enti Locali, che attribuisce al governo il potere di scioglimento dei consigli comunali e provinciali per infiltrazioni o condizionamenti della criminalità di tipo mafioso. Il lavoro, presentato come "paper" al Convegno annuale dell'Associazione Italiana Professori di Diritto amministrativo nell'ottobre 2017, si sofferma su problemi di costituzionalità "vecchi" (sentenza C. Cost., n. 103/1993) e "nuovi" (mutato ruolo del consiglio comunale ed entrata in vigore della cd. legge Severino sulle incandidabilità), per trattare poi, in conclusione, alcune ipotesi di revisione della norma che qui interessa (anche alla luce della vicenda di Roma Capitale e dell'emergere di una "terza via", tra scioglimento e mancato scioglimento).