REVEALING THE MYSTERIES OF THE DRAFT BILLS

September 2017

WHAT IS A DRAFT BILL?

It is a proposal for a new law, or a proposal to change an existing law, divided into sections and preceded by a preamble, submitted for debate by the Houses of Parliament.It can be introduced by:

every member of Parliament, by the Government, or by at least 50,000 voters – art. 71 of the Constitution of the Italian Republic;the National Council for Economic Affairs and Labour (CNEL)- art. 99, comma three of the Constitution;a Regional Council – art. 121, comma two of the Constitution.

FUN FACT

In general, the term draft legis-lation is used when reference is made without distinction, to all legislative initiatives.

Proposals by the Government are call draft bills only when they are introduced in the Chamber of Deputies; all the others are called legislative proposals. The term draft bill is used by the Senate for all legislative initiatives.

KEEP AN EYE ON ITS LANGUAGE AND STRUCTURE!

A regulatory text must be concise, without semantic or syntactic ambiguities; it must be simple, precise, and have coherent contents. It must also be accurate when referring to normative references.The Chairs of the Chamber and Senate, in agreement with the Prime Minister, have issued a circular note entitled “Rules and recommendations regarding the drafting of regulatory texts”. Specific offices in both Houses are responsible for applying it to draft bills.It may be necessary to make formal adjustments or coordination changes during approval of a draft bill, in two cases in particular: either if the text is complex or numerous amendments have been approved.

FIGURES... FIGURES: JUST HOW MANY

During the current seven-teenth legislature, which be-gan on 15 March 2013, 7,135 draft bills have been intro-duced, of which a whopping 3,108 in 2013 alone. This happens at the start of every legislature when the draft bills that were not passed are re-introduced.

Most of the them are introduced by MPs (6,627, of which 4,182 introduced in the Chamber of Deputies and 2,674 in the Senate); 390 are introduced by the Government, 71 by the Regions, 41 by popular initiative, and 6 by CNEL. Not all draft bills are adopted and become law. Since the beginning of the legislature Parliament has approved 327 draft bills.

FIGURES... FIGURES: HOW LONG?

None of the six draft bills introduced by the CNEL have been approved.

The average time it takes to approve a draft bill introduced by MPs is 314 days (Senate) and 271 days (Chamber of Deputies), against “just” 97 and 57 days for government draft bills. Draft bills introduced by Regions are usually approved in 106 days by the Senate and 75 days by the Chamber of Deputies. Popular initiative draft bills are approved in 71 days by the Senate and a rather lengthy 295 days by the Chamber of Deputies.

AFTER INTRODUCTION...

Draft bills are printed and distributed as quickly as possible and simultaneously published on the website of either the Chamber or Senate, depending where they were introduced. Members of the Assembly are informed about the introduction of a draft bill when they see it mentioned in the general daily agenda.Draft bills are assigned a sequence number, in two separate series for the Senate and the Chamber. Numbers start from zero at the beginning of each legislature. When a draft bill is approved by one branch of Parliament and transmitted to the other it is assigned a new number of its respective series; in the next, possible transmission it will always maintain the numbers assigned by the two branches.At this point the draft bill is ready to embark on the procedure that will turn it into a law of the State: the legislative procedure.

ASSIGNING THE BILL TO A COMMITTEE

After the draft bill has been announced to the assembly of the branch of Parliament where it has been introduced, it is assigned to a Standing Committee responsible for examining the issue to which it refers. One MP, usually from the majority party, becomes the rapporteur.

The ordinary procedure is divided into two stages:scrutiny by the Committee responsible for drafting a document review and preliminary assessment and also preparing a text for debate in the Assembly (thus its name, referral Committee);debate and deliberation by the Assembly.

THE REFERRAL COMMITTEE

The Committee members ex-press the position of their political parties regarding the contents of the measure and propose amendments that are then debated by the Com-mittee. During the scrutiny, the Committee also gathers opinions (consultation) from other Committees which may make suggestions regarding the parts for which they are competent.

Government bodies and private indi-viduals can provide opinions and data during hearings with the Committee if the latter deems said opinions and data nec-essary to scrutiny the draft bill.When the Committee has completed its task, the rapporteur prepares a report for the House; the report contains the text proposed by the Committee and, possibly, reports by minority groups.

SCRUTINY BY THE ASSEMBLY

The debate in the House starts with a presentation by the rapporteur followed by a presentation by the Government representative; parliamentarians then speak on the general issue of the measure in question and express the position of their groups. After that, each article of the draft bill is examined and a vote taken regarding the amendments drafted by the Committee. The final stage involves approval of the draft bill after a review of any agenda items (i.e., documents drafted by the Government regarding how the future law will be implemented) and explanations of vote regarding the measure.

Apart from the ordinary procedure, two simplified/shortened procedures are envisaged:

legislative (or deliberative) procedure, entirely completed by the Committee that executes the scrutiny and final approval of the draft bill;compilation procedure, the House approves the draft bill whose articles have been drafted by the Committee, but cannot make changes to the text.

SIMPLIFIED AND SHORTENED PROCEDURES

A draft bill already approved by one House is scrutinised by the other House using the same procedure.If after the first reading by both Houses the draft bill returns to one House because the other has made more changes, the second reading will only focus on the parts that have been changed.In Italy’s perfect bicameral system, the shuttle between the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate continues until the two houses agree on a perfectly identical text.

SCRUTINY OF THE DRAFT BILLS ALREADY APPROVED BY THE OTHER HOUSE

It is the responsibility of Parliament to then summarise and condense all the specific interests.

Lobbyists work so that the requests of their interested parties, organisation or clients are presented and taken into consideration by the public decision-maker.

AND WHAT DO LOBBYISTS DO?

Lobbyists:study the original text of the draft bill and identify areas where it is possible to intervene;meet the rapporteur and representatives of the parliamentary groups in the referral Committee, and -if deemed useful- also in the Committees that will issue an opinion, to present the position of their clients and any possible critical areas they have identified;present proposal of amendments – accompanied by an explanatory note – and arrange their organisation or client participation in parliamentary hearings.

Lobbying continues while the Assembly examines the draft bill and, later, in the other branch of Parliament. Remember that the second reading procedure (restricted to the parts that have been modified) limits the possibility to modify the text only to the parts that have last been changed.

AND HOW DO LOBBYISTS WORK?

The Constitution (art. 138) envisages a reinforced procedure for the approval of draft bills revising the Constitution as well as constitutional draft bills.In fact, these draft bills have to be approved by both Houses during two separate votes (the second with an absolute majority) at an interval of not less than three months. Article 72 of the Constitution excludes the possibility that constitutional bills be approved by the Committees using the legislative procedure.Within three months of their publication a confirmative referendum can be requested by one/fifths of the members of a House, five hundred thousand voters or five Regional Councils. In this case the law is promulgated only if it is approved by a majority of valid votes. It is not possible to request a referendum if the law has been approved by two-thirds of the members of each House in the second voting. continued

THE CONSTITUTIONAL BILL

On 12 April 2016 Parliament approved a proposal to revi-se the Constitution that envi-saged, amongst other things, the abolition of the perfect bicameral system and a reduction in the number of MPs (the so-called Boschi Law).

A confirmative referendum was re-quested based on a parliamentary ini-tiative and petition since the law had not been approved by a two-thirds ma-jority. The reform was rejected by ap-proximately 60% of voters during the consultative referendum held on 4 De-cember 2016; as a result, the reform did not enter into force.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL BILL

Promulgation is the act by which the President of the Republic certifies that a text has been approved by Parliament and orders it be published and respected.Promulgation must take place within one month of the final approval of the law. But the President of the Republic can send the law back to the Houses, together with a reasoned opinion, and request that the law be considered anew. This action by the President reopens the legislative procedure; if the law is approved again it must be promulgated.

FINAL STEPS: PROMULGATION AND…

The law is published after promulgation. Publication of the law is entrusted to the Minister of Justice and technically involves inserting the text in the Official Compilation of the regulatory acts of the Italian Republic as well as publishing the law in the Official Journal of the Italian Republic. The law comes into force on the fifteenth day after publication in the Official Journal unless the law establishes a different deadline.

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