The opposition abandoned the Senate Justice Committee which began examining the bill on sexual violence, which contains the provision on women’s consent, the result of a bipartisan agreement with input from Giorgia Meloni and Elly Schlein. They are thus protesting against the request for greater in-depth analysis of the law requested by the League, which was joined by Fratelli d’Italia and Forza Italia, also requesting hearings. Already in the group leaders’ conference, the opposition had asked for a vote directly in the Chamber today also to make the vote coincide with the international day against violence against women which falls today. And the president of the Senate, Ignazio La Russa, had joined.
The senator of Italia viva, Ivan Scalfarotto, as soon as he left the commission, denounced: “There was an important political agreement, in the Chamber there was a unanimous vote on this law, that is, the top leaders of the parliamentary groups had shaken hands and this now means that shaking hands with this right is worth nothing, because at the last moment you can go back, even contradicting a unanimous vote of Parliament and they decide to do it today, November 25” (international day against violence against women, ed.).
In the viewfinder, according to the opposition, there would be no substantive provision of the bill other than a request defined as “specious” because, as explained by the senator of the Democratic Party, Valeria Valente, “the majority contested the last paragraph which was already part of article 609 bis of the current penal code”. This is the part in which the bill provides that “in less serious cases, the sentence is reduced by no more than 2/3”. But Valente replied: “The lesser severity is already covered in the law as it applies today. Now they say it was better to change it. So they are sticking to something specious.”
The Dem, Anna Rossomando, joined in underlining: “We are very saddened and surprised” by the attitude of the majority which “inexplicably” has “scuttled the provision, therefore we left the commission”. Also in the crosshairs is “alternating bicameralism and when the majority decides”, which Scalfarotto contested: “Now even the budget law is approved in a single reading, today they remembered equal bicameralism, that is, that there is a second Chamber to look into it and then let’s start doing it on the budget too.”