In view of the second degree trial on the dismissal of Mimmo Lucano as mayor of Riace, two questions of legitimacy were raised by the lawyers Andrea Daqua and Giuliano Saitta and will be discussed in the hearing set for next March 5, when the Court of Appeal of Reggio Calabria will have to decide whether to involve the Council or whether to proceed with the civil judicial proceedings. For Lucano’s defense, in fact, regarding the rights of passive electorate, guaranteed by the Constitution, there would be a first conflict between the Charter and the Severino law, invoked by the prefecture of Reggio Calabria to request the dismissal of the mayor of Riace ordered last June by the Court of Locri after the final sentence of 18 months for forgery received in the “Xenia” trial.
Lucano’s lawyers would like the Constitutional Court to express its opinion on article 10 first paragraph letter ‘d’ of the Severino law in the part in which, according to the lawyers, it contrasts with articles 3 and 51 of the Constitution which establish the rights of “freedom and equality” that citizens must enjoy when exercising their right to vote. For the two lawyers, in fact, the Severino law affects constitutional rights when it establishes that “anyone who has been condemned by a final sentence to a prison sentence exceeding six months in total for one or more crimes committed with abuse of powers or with violation of duties inherent to functions or a public service” is forfeited as mayor.
The envisaged sanction would not be sufficiently typified and would be susceptible to non-univocal evaluation and interpretation by the prefecture or by the judges called to apply the rule. This is essentially what would have happened in the Lucano affair where neither the sentence of the Court of Appeal of Reggio Calabria nor that of the Supreme Court makes any reference to the alleged abuse of power which, for the Court of Locri in the forfeiture proceedings, is instead “inherent as a constitutive element of the case”.
Finally, the second question of constitutional legitimacy raised concerns Legislative Decree 150 of 2011 which, in article 22, establishes the suspension, “pending appeal”, of the executive effectiveness of the sentence of the Court of Locri against Lucano. For the defense of the mayor of Riace, if the Court of Appeal of Reggio Calabria were to confirm Lucano’s dismissal it would be “illegitimate” pending the Court of Cassation not to provide for a suspension of the effectiveness of the second sentence as well.