An avalanche of No votes rejects the Meloni government’s justice reform. The referendum ends with the victory of the opposing side, which exceeds 53.74%, while the Yes party stops at 46.26%. The Constitution, therefore, will not be modified and the result gives the country a clear political verdict, achieved with a turnout of almost 59%.
From the first projections it appeared clear that the dispute went well beyond the technical merit of the reform, which nevertheless remained centered on crucial issues such as the separation of careers between prosecutors and judges, the creation of two CSMs and the establishment of a High Disciplinary Court for magistrates. The vote, however, immediately took on an exquisitely political value, turning into the first real stop for the Prime Minister, who loses the aura of invincibility built up in recent years.
Meloni does not back down: “Popular sovereignty is respected”
Giorgia Meloni had personally contributed to the success of the referendum and, after the defeat, confirmed the line already announced in the days of the campaign: no step backwards. The prime minister, while defining the result as a “missed opportunity”, reiterates that the verdict of the polls must be respected and that the government’s action will continue. A position shared, albeit with different nuances, also by the majority allies, starting with the deputy prime ministers Antonio Tajani and Matteo Salvini. Tajani invites us to lower the tone, while Salvini, who has remained more secluded on the reform, observes from afar a match in which Forza Italia was mainly at the forefront.
In the centre-right, the issue of internal balance now remains open, because the rejection of the only constitutional reform brought to the vote by the government risks leaving political consequences. And in the background also remain the controversies that accompanied the entire referendum campaign, including verbal clashes, over the top declarations and tensions that ran through the public debate up until the days immediately preceding the vote.
The broad field regroups and launches the primaries
The result is immediately read by the center-left as a double political mandate: on the one hand the defense of the Constitution, on the other the indication that there is a concrete space for an alternative government. After the vote, Elly Schlein speaks openly of an “alternative majority”, while Giuseppe Conte interprets the referendum as a political warning to the Prime Minister. The primaries are also back on the table, relaunched almost in real time by multiple voices from the progressive camp, in an attempt to capitalize on a victory that has regrouped forces that until yesterday were still looking for a stable balance.
On the left, the success of the No vote is hailed as a response to what is defined as an attack on the constitutional balance. In the committees against the reform, the reading of a highly political vote prevails, while in the Yes camp there is open talk of a lost battle, without however denying the commitment made during the campaign.
Conte: this vote is an eviction notice for the government
«It’s a very strong political signal. After four years and four budget laws, the government is empty-handed. They made a single reform which was rejected by the citizens and this despite a referendum campaign also carried out by Meloni personally, with unified networks.” And “this vote is an eviction notice for the government.” The leader of the M5s Giuseppe Conte supported this in an interview with Corriere della Sera, Messaggero and Fatto Daily, underlining that «the wind has changed, the government has lost in a very political vote. There is no longer any habituation to this executive. A new season has opened, a new spring.” On the possibility of taking the field for the primaries for whoever will lead the center-left, Conte said that “there is an availability, which must be examined with my community”. «I am thinking – he explained – of real primaries, so broad as to create a long wave and certainly not of a consultation suffocated by party apparatuses that manage and administer them. With the hundred spaces of democracy opened by the M5s in the next few weeks we will collect citizens’ proposals and then bring them to the entire progressive coalition.” After the referendum outcome, Conte then said he expected «a much worse political climate within the majority. It wouldn’t surprise me if they started to fall apart and criticize each other’s inabilities.” As for the new electoral law, Conte is categorical: «It is a super-scam and a move of desperation. We are ready to block them again.” Even the reform of the premiership, in his opinion, the Italians would “send back to the sender, as they did with a reform that I renamed injustice”.
Schlein, “An alternative majority already exists”
«The vote says that there is already an alternative majority in the country and we progressive forces have a responsibility to organize this hope. A responsibility we all feel. The over 14 million people who voted no, 5 million more than those who had chosen Pd M5s and Avs at the European elections, demonstrate that there is a majority different from the one in office and we want to build a proposal that lives up to expectations”, with “health, work, home and school” at the centre. Thus the secretary of the Democratic Party Elly Schlein in an interview with Repubblica and la Stampa. Responding to M5s leader Giuseppe Conte, who launched the primaries for the centre-left, Schlein said he was “absolutely available to run” to choose “who will lead the progressive coalition”. Returning to the referendum, Schlein said that, in his opinion, «when the turnout is close to 60%, one cannot fail to see the strong political message addressed first and foremost to the government, which attempted to modify the Constitution on its own, imposing an armored text on Parliament without any possibility of amending it. An unacceptable forcing, rightly punished at the polls.” Young people, he added, “made a difference in this referendum and they did it despite having been unfairly deprived of their right to vote outside the office”. From Italy, he concluded, “has come the first real setback of the nationalist right which throughout the world, from Orban’s Hungary to Trump’s America, is cultivating a precise plan: to weaken the autonomy of the judiciary in order to weaken it and put it under the control of the executive”.
The game on justice is over, the political game is opening now
In short, the referendum closes an institutional game but opens an entirely political one. The government is trying to limit the damage and relaunch other reforms, while the opposition sees the outcome of the polls as the first real sign of vulnerability of the executive. One year after the elections, the feeling is that the electoral campaign has already begun and that the vote on justice, rather than shelving a conflict, has inaugurated a new phase of national political confrontation.
Nordio: “I take note of the decision of the sovereign people but I do not resign”
«I respectfully note the decision of the sovereign people. Our intention was to definitively implement the project conceived by Giuliano Vassalli with the accusatory process and consecrated by article 111 of the Constitution which defines the third and impartial judge. We have put all our energy into explaining, in accessible terms, the complexity of this reform. It is not our intention to attribute a political meaning to this vote or not. We thank the part of the electorate who put their trust in us and in any case we are consoled by the high turnout in the vote which confirms the solidity of our democracy.” Thus the Minister of Justice Carlo Nordio regarding the result of the referendum on Justice.
Resignation? «No, why? It’s part of politics to lose elections. It also happened to Churchill, after the Second World War. I don’t consider it a personal defeat. It was a reform that I believed in and that I think I put all the effort into. I was certain we would win. I bow to the sovereign people. But I’m not thinking about resigning. I still have many things to do, even if some reforms will stop”, added Nordio, in an interview with Corriere della Sera.
«Now we must dedicate ourselves to making justice more efficient – he explains -: to the competitions to be announced to complete the staffing of the magistrates and to the stabilization of the Pnrr staff. Taking it philosophically, we say that the defeat saves us a lot of time that we would have had to dedicate to the implementing decrees to do all this.”
Parodi resigned as president of the ANM
Cesare Parodi has resigned from the position of president of the National Association of Magistrates. To those who learn for “personal reasons”.