No urgent ruling on the TAR ruling and precautionary hearing set for October 1st: the Council of State takes the first official step in the dispute over the modification of the Region’s statute which reintroduces the figure of undersecretaries. Having filed – as anticipated by the “Gazzetta del Sud” – the administration’s appeal on 19 September, yesterday was the precautionary decree of judge Valerio Perotti (acting president of the fifth section) which rejects the request for urgent monocratic measures advanced by the appellants, i.e. in the specific case to “freeze” the referendum set for 29 November.
We will therefore talk about it on October 1st, as just ordered by the appellate magistrate who dealt with the issue in the first instance. The game – legal but also political – remains very open, after the Calabria Regional Administrative Court declared inadmissible “due to relative lack of jurisdiction” the Region’s appeal against the Regional Central Office for the referendum at the Court of Appeal of Catanzaro which, accepting the request of seven opposition regional councillors, had given the green light to the holding of the referendum to confirm the changes to the regional statute. According to the first degree administrative magistrates, “the judge with jurisdiction” is the ordinary one. «It is not up to this Court – we read in the short sentence – to specifically identify the competent ordinary judge, nor the specific protection instrument. In fact, these are issues that fall within the exclusive state property of the different jurisdiction to which jurisdiction is attributed.” An argument, that of the incompetence of the Regional Administrative Court, which does not convince the Region’s lawyers: hence the appeal to the Council of State with the aim of overturning the ruling and obtaining a sentence that effectively blocks the referendum machine. The opposition councilors have appeared in court, who politically trust on the one hand in the referendum and on the other hope for a step backwards by the majority which will result in the revocation of the much contested amendment to the statute.
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