The Italian Approach to the COVID-19 Crisis: A State of Exception Ruled by Technicians (original) (raw)
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Is the Covid-19 pandemic changing the constitutional-power structures of our democracies? Is this centennial public health emergency irreversibly constraining our liberties? The paper examines recent state-measures of containment during the initial phase of spread of the Covid-19 crisis. It compares primarily the Italian scenario with the Chinese and the American one. It asks whether the measures adopted particularly in the Italian case (known as DPCMs) amount to a state of exception or to a use of emergency powers. Cognizant of the authoritarian risks in severed enjoyments of constitutional rights, the authors conclude that this is not what occurred in the case of solid democracies. At the level of governmental analysis, the “decree” strategy of the Italian DPCMs allude to paternalistic forms of power-exercise that empty the self-determining prerogative of the parliament.
A look at the COVID-19 pandemic: the Italian case
Revista de Estudos Constitucionais, Hermenêutica e Teoria do Direito, 2020
The paper examines the complex, multidisciplinary and multidimensional scope of the coronavirus pandemic, focusing on its intertwined implications for international, supranational and domestic laws. The global reach of the phenomenon has highlighted limits and structural gaps at all levels of government in human society, raising questions to which rulers will have to give precise answers.
The Covid – 19 pandemic has become in a few time a syndemic, or in other words a complex of patholgies that not only is harming the health but also the economic, social, cultural and relational fabric of the nation‟s hit by it. It is the first time in a century that the fate of many nations, not only in terms of collective health but also of economic performance and social stability, is closely linked to the identification and to the ability to produce and distribute enough doses of an effective, and affordable for all, vaccine. This article addresses an important question: in such a scenario is the scarcity in the vaccine, particularly at the initial stage, inevitable? The answer is that it is not and that its shortage is itself derived from a number of what Calabresi and Bobbit, in their masterpiece Tragic Choices name “first order” decisions, made by the various nations in their dealing with the relevant pharmaceutical companies. In other words scarcity is the result of a „domino effect‟, a chain of decisions taken in succession whose dynamics is difficult to control and of which only upon the manifestation of the effects, in this case deleterious, does one realize the gravity of the situation. In doing so some remedy to the 'domino effect' is prospected and the italian scenario is described.
Revista Derecho y Salud, 2020
The results of the appearance of the novel coronavirus meant for many States, the application of restrictive measures of constitutionally protected rights and freedoms, with the aim-preliminarily-of protecting the health and integrity of people. Thus, a real "emer-gency legal framework" was created, with restrictions on interpersonal contact, and other daily situations in the life of any society. Italy stood out for being the first country where COVID-19 attacked with particular viru-lence. The first steps of the government at the end of January 2020 were aimed at preventing the entry of people from China, and soon after, put in place much more restrictive measures as the number of deceased patients increased. However, to some extent, all the imposed restrictions seemed to have been a price to be paid in order to protect human health. RESUMEN: Los resultados de la aparición del novel coronavirus significó para muchos Estados, la aplicación de medidas restrictivas de derechos y libertades constitucionalmente tutelados, con el objeto-preliminarmente-de proteger la salud e integridad de las personas. Así, se dio paso a la creación de un verdadero "sistema jurídico de emergencia", con restricciones al contacto interpersonal, situaciones por demás cotidianas en la vida de cualquier sociedad. Italia se destacó por ser el primer país donde el COVID-19 atacó con particular virulencia. Los primeros pasos del gobierno a finales de enero de 2020 tuvieron el objetivo de impedir el ingreso de personas provenientes de China, para poco después disponer medidas mucho más restrictivas a medida que el número de pacientes fallecidos aumentaba. Sin embargo, en algún punto, las restricciones impuestas se presentan como el precio que se debió pagar a cambio de la salud humana.
The Italian Response to COVID-19: Between the Civil Protection Code and Prime Ministerial Decrees
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Almost three years after the outbreak of the pandemic, it seems to be possible to identify some trends and draw some concluding remarks concerning the legal response to the pandemic crisis in Italy. While the constitutional system was probably successful in safeguarding the core content of the rule of law, the question to be asked might well be another one. Namely, did the legal framework, based on the combination of the use of decree-laws and prime ministerial decrees, and greatly diverged from the Civil Protection Code, really prove to be the most suitable response, or, on deeper analysis, did it end up generating more problems than it solved?
Italian Legislation in Times of Pandemics and International Law: The Way Out of the Emergency
in «Italian Yearbook of International Law», vol. 32, n. 1, 2022, pp. 333-350; ISSN 0391-5107., 2022
Building upon the practice analysed in the previous issue of this Yearbook, the present inquiry provides a follow-up of the normative framework in force in the Italian legal system in 2022 to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. By enacting a plethora of prescriptive measures, Italy either implemented, derogated, or violated international obligations. In this respect, this contribution pursues a twofold objective. On the one hand, it is aimed at assessing Italy's attitude towards international law. To this end, rather than reporting entirely new measures, it will attempt to point out what happened to the main policies Italy implemented during the emergency. On the other hand, it intends to provide a useful tool for comparative analysis. The conclusions that will be reached may indeed allow for a comparison with the practice of other countries which have experienced a situation similar to that of Italy, both to draw analogies or differences regarding the stance they have taken towards international law and to assess the latter's role in global health governance.
Social Sciences
The COVID-19 crisis caused unprecedented disruption in terms of human losses, economic damages, social isolation, and general malaise. It seems that, although the advice of the scientific communities to adopt rigorous measures of track and tracing, mass testing, and lock down was often considered at odds with economic performance, eventually it was precisely that kind of advice that avoided the economic debacle. This article will try and find out the reasons why Italy was more efficient and effective in implementing the measures suggested by national and transnational scientific communities. The article will do so by answering the following questions: (1) What are the political determinants of the different state responses to the pandemic? (2) Why have epistemic communities’ receipts to exit the COVID-19 crisis been ignored in some countries to follow a misguided economic logic? (3) Has the state response to the crisis anything to do with the importance of neo-liberalism and neo-lib...
The Governance of Covid-19 Pandemic Health Emergency in Italy: A Constitutional Perspective
Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Iuridica, 2021
The essay focuses on the measures that have been taken in Italy to limit the contagion with Coronavirus in the first phase of the health emergency in 2020. The Italian Government was the first to face the epidemiological crisis in a constitutional democracy. The lockdown was one of the most drastic in Europe. On the one hand, fundamental freedoms of individuals have been compressed; on the other, the objective of limiting the expansion of the contagion in the early stage of pandemic expansion has been achieved, probably saving all European countries from an ungovernable health crisis before a minimal preparation. Even some critical aspects in the decision making process could be highlighted from a constitutional law perspective, the Author believes that the temporary measures, although drastic, not exceeded the limits allowed by the Italian Constitution, nor they seriously affected the balance between the powers at least in the first/second phase. The majority of Parliament approved...
The clash of technocracies The pandemic's episteme of the Italian Red Zone
DiscourseNet Collaborative Working Paper Series
This contribution analyses different technocratic discourses emergent in the context of the Italian management of the coronavirus pandemic. It suggests that each of these discourses share a common conception of the population as irresponsible and potentially dangerous. The main unintentional outcome of such common epistemic terrain is the empowerment and the enforcement of administrative and police practices over territories and populations. Through this discussion, the paper sets out to highlight a paternalistic appeal which reconstitutes a ‘responsible subject’ for the post-covid era
State of Emergency Italian democracy in times of pandemic
It is probably still too early to take stock of the Covid-19 pandemic and establish whether the solutions adopted by Italy have been more efficient than those adopted elsewhere. Furthermore, it is still too early to formulate hypotheses on the ability of democracies to respond to the pandemic, or on the causes that, in some areas, have favored both a more rapid spread of the virus, as well as higher levels of mortality. The questions around the future of democracy and the impact of the pandemic on our political systems will remain at the center of scholarly attention in the coming years and will require in-depth research. This volume, created by Polidemos (the Center for the study of democracy and political change), intends to contribute to the discussion, focusing in particular on the ‘Italian case’, or rather on the way in which Italian democracy has responded to the health emergency. The scholars who collaborated in this research focused on some crucial dimensions: in particular, the expansion of emergency powers, the relationship between the executive and the legislative, the role of local authorities and the state-regions relationship, changes in populist formations and technocratic tendencies, the response of the Italian elites, and the transformations in political communication. In an even simpler way, this book asks some brutal questions, which are worth enunciating: has the pandemic emergency aggravated the “crisis” of Italian democracy (assuming such a “crisis” really exists and is not merely the result of an optical illusion)? Has the “state of emergency” declared by the Italian government “suspended” individual freedoms and the power of Parliament? And has the pandemic emergency helped to erode the foundations on which Italian democracy rests, favoring the spread of anti-democratic parties and messages?