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Corruption-mitigating Policies: The Case of Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

James L. Newell*
Affiliation:
School of English, Sociology, Politics and Contemporary History, University of Salford, Salford M5 4WT, UK. E-mail: j.l.newell@salford.ac.uk

Summary

One of the circumstances likely to be associated with the intensity of both investigative and legislative efforts designed to curb political and bureaucratic corruption is institutional reform. Since the characteristics of electoral and party systems seem to be associated with variations in the intensity of anti-corruption efforts cross-nationally, it was reasonable to think that changes in the characteristics of these systems in Italy in the 1990s would be reflected in a corresponding change in the efforts of legislators and members of the judiciary to tackle corruption. Prior to the 1990s Italy's tripolar party system and its numerous concomitants placed considerable obstacles in the way of the willingness and the ability of judicial investigators and parliamentarians to deal with the corruption emergency. The 1993 electoral law reform, the eventual emergence of a largely bipolar party system and the circumstances surrounding these processes considerably diminished the significance of the aforementioned obstacles, yet there has been little noticeable increase in anti-corruption efforts. This is probably explicable in terms of the electoral effects of such efforts and suggests that institutional change is at most only one of a number of conditions that must be fulfilled in order for more strenuous efforts to be observed.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

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References

Notes

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7. To these one might add associational initiatives, both by professional interest groups and by universal pressure groups, such as Transparency International. The focus here is on politico-legislative and judicial-investigative efforts, since it is these efforts that would appear most likely to be affected by institutional change and because, ultimately, it is by means of their impact on such efforts that associational initiatives by and large have their effect, if any. Such initiatives belong to the category of public pressure.Google Scholar

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40. Three-quarters of the seats in both chambers of Parliament are distributed according to the single member, simple plurality system, one-quarter proportionally. In the case of the Senate, the country is divided into 237 single seat colleges within which the voter chooses his or her preferred candidate. The candidate winning the most votes is elected. The remaining 78 seats are distributed among the country's 20 regions according to size and are allocated proportionally according to the d'Hondt highest average formula. Within each region the parties‘ vote totals are calculated and then discounted by the votes received by candidates that have been elected outright in the single member colleges. This is the so-called scorporo (or ‘deduction of votes’). Seats are then given to the (not already elected) candidates of parties entitled to receive seats in accordance with the size of such candidates’ vote shares. In the case of the Chamber 27 constituencies are sub-divided into 475 single member colleges within which the voter makes a choice of candidate and the candidate winning the most votes is elected. Candidates in the single member colleges must be supported by at least one of the party (or party coalition) lists presented at constituency level for distribution of the remaining 155 seats. The voter has a second ballot with which to make his or her choice among these lists. The proportionally distributed seats are allocated only to those lists that receive at least 4 per cent of the national total of valid list votes cast. Seats are then allocated to lists in three steps. First, in each constituency each qualifying list's ‘electoral total’ is calculated. This is its vote total minus, for each of the party's candidates elected in single member colleges in the constituency, a sum of votes equal to the total obtained by the second placed candidate. Again, this is known as the scorporo. Second, the sum of all qualifying lists’ electoral totals are divided by the number of proportional seats allocated to the constituency to obtain the constituency electoral quotient. Third, each party's electoral total is then divided by the quotient to determine the number of seats to which it is entitled.Google Scholar

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44. The proposal provided for: • the appointment of an independent ‘Authority for the legality and transparency of the activities of the public administration’, with powers to inspect the activities of public bodies and to investigate the financial circumstances of a range of public officials in the event of suspicions arising concerning the violation of principles of legality and transparency; • the setting up of a register of the financial interests of a range of elected and non-elected public officials from university professors to prime ministers; • the setting up of a register of the lobbying activities of individuals, companies and associations; • the publication of an official Bulletin making public the details of all sales, acquisitions and tendering activities carried out by public bodies.Google Scholar

45. The first of them, law 59/97, sought to give effect to a range of administrative reforms, including delegation to the regions and local authorities of a number of administrative functions via a process of legislative decree. It empowered the government, within nine months, to pass legislative decrees conferring upon the regions and local authorities administrative responsibilities in all areas ‘related to the protection of the interests and the promotion of the development of their respective communities’ except those areas listed in the law itself [Newell, James L., ‘At the start of a journey: steps on the road to decentralization’, in Bardi, Luciano and Rhodes, Martin (eds), Italian Politics: Mapping the Future , Westview Press, Boulder, CO, pp. 149–67]. In doing this, it sought to initiate a process of bureaucratic rationalization that would eliminate all duplication of functions between different levels of government and administration. For details see Gilbert, Mark, ‘Le leggi Bassanini: una tappa intermedia nella riforma del governo locale’, in Hine, David and Vassallo, Salvatore (eds), Politica in Italia: I fatti dell'anno e le interpretazioni, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1999, pp. 161–80. The second, law no. 127/97, sought to continue the attempt to simplify administration in a number of areas of public life initiated by law no. 59/97, by improving the efficiency of decision-making and reducing the extent of bureaucratic control procedures.Google Scholar

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47. The typical criminal trial takes over 4 years to complete and there are currently nearly six million cases pending. McNess, Anne, ‘The Italian judicial system and its reform’, mimeo, British Embassy, Rome, March 2003, p. 3.Google Scholar

48. Once a trial has been concluded and judgement passed, any party can ask for the case to be reviewed by the next grade of court, i.e. the corte d'appello for cases heard in the first instance by a tribunal or the corte d'assise d'appello for cases heard in the first instance by the Assize Court. On conclusion of the second grade of justice, the losing party may appeal to the Corte di Cassazione or Supreme Court on the grounds of wrong interpretation or application of the law by the judge. McNess, , ‘The Italian judicial system and its reform’, p. 2.Google Scholar

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52. These initiatives have been linked to hostility towards the judiciary on the part of numbers of politicians, discussed in the following paragraph. They include the attempt, in 1994, to restrict by government decree the preventive custody powers of prosecutors, the attempt, in 1998, to establish a parliamentary commission of enquiry into the activities of the Mani pulite investigators, periodic ministerial inspections of the important Milan public prosecutor's office and, most recently, proposals to replace the constitutional obligation on prosecutors to pursue all cases of suspected wrongdoing of which they are aware with a degree of political influence over the cases to be pursued.Google Scholar

53. What seems to have happened is that suspects, held incommunicado, would be offered the choice of remaining in prison or else release if they confessed. Accomplices, knowing that they too would be picked up in the event of a confession but not knowing exactly how much had been revealed thus had an incentive to tell ‘their side of the story’ as soon as possible, before the confessions of those in prison had gone ‘too far’.Google Scholar

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55. della Porta and Vannucci cite Ministry of Justice figures showing that on 31 May 1998 203 magistrates were under investigation for crimes ranging from extortion and corruption to abuse of office, slander, ideological falsity and collusion with the Mafia (della Porta, and Vannucci, , Un paese anormale , p. 54). Unfortunately, we do not, for the time being, have figures for earlier years.Google Scholar

56. For further details concerning Transparency International and the Corruption Perceptions Index see Lancaster, Thomas D. and Montinola, Gabriella R., ‘Toward a methodology for the comparative study of political corruption’, Crime, Law and Social Change , 27, 3/4, 1997, pp. 185206; Transparency International's Web site, http://www.transparency.org.Google Scholar

57. Electoral details can be found in Newell, James L., The Italian General Election of 2001: Berlusconi's Victory , Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2002.Google Scholar

58. For example, Italian National Election Study data show that between 1994 and 1996 only 5.5 per cent of those voting at both elections switched allegiance between the two main coalitions, and between 1996 and 2001 only 7.6 per cent did so. ITANES (Italian National Election Study), Perché ha vinto il centro-destra , Il Mulino, Bologna, 2001, p. 93.Google Scholar

59. della Porta, and Vannucci, , Un paese anormale , p. 57.Google Scholar

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