Reforming the Constitution: Does "Precision Surgery" Obviate the Adaptation of the Rest of the Legal System? An Analysis Based on the Italian Case

Abstract

“One, none and a hundred thousand”, the ways of reforming the legal system, to use Pirandello’s expression. All of these can lead to achieving the objective set by the legislator, but the legitimacy of the procedure and the accuracy of the scope of the revision are not always indicative of a complete end product, i.e. one that is perfectly applicable to the existing legal system.

To demonstrate this, the constitutional review of the reduction of the number of parliamentarians in Italy in 2020 is used as an example. The intention is not to assess whether the provision in question embodies any normative discrimination, but to illustrate —also visually— the harshness of the impact that a constitutional reform can have on its actual projection, particularly in the parliamentary sphere.