The purpose of this study is to analyze the legal status of the regione , role allocations for the legislative and administrative powers of the central and local governments, and the distribution and the coordination of financial resources in Italy. T...
The purpose of this study is to analyze the legal status of the regione , role allocations for the legislative and administrative powers of the central and local governments, and the distribution and the coordination of financial resources in Italy. The reason to focus on Sardinia in this study is that establishing Italy since the formation of the modern nation, was basically carried out by the succession to the Kingdom of Sardinia’s including the local government system. This study also included in the analysis of the current systems of Sardinia, special autonomous region in Italy. Although the Italian Peninsula has a long history of having been divided and competing with numerous city comunes for 1300 years until the mid-19th century when the Italian Kingdom was established, the history of local government system is very short. The first modern state of Italy, established in 1861 was succeeded to the Kingdom of Sardinia’s centralized systems including legal systems, politics, administrations, fiscal systems, educations, and military systems. Those are inherited from France s centralized ruling systems. The introduction of the region system was held off and only provincia and comune were established as local administrative units. The central government dispatched ‘prefetto’ as head of the prefecture, presiding its parliament and exercising strong powers over the administration in general. The Italian Constitution established in 1948, declared Local Autonomy and Decentralization as ‘Fundamental Principles(Principi Fondamentali)’ in order to overcome the historical agony caused by the old centralized administration system. It also stipulated 20 terms in details for the operation of the local systems. At least in theory, Italy has a three-tiered local government systems, comprised of regions, prefectures, and comunes. In practice, however, the ruling by the bureaucracy for the ordinary regions had been continued except for five special autonomous states until then. Autonomy and decentralization, which represent the basic principles of the Constitution, were implemented only through five special autonomous regions. Sicilia, Sardinia, Trentino-Alto Adige, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Valle d Aosta, around the enactment of a constitution of new republic, have exerted autonomy under a special charter(statuti speciali), which is adopted in the form of a constitutional law(legge costituzionale). However, there are many differences in the degree of autonomy for the special autonomous regions depending on their status and time of the establishment. The three regions located in the northern border of Valle d’Aosta, Trentino-Alto Adige and Friuli-Venezia Giulia are granted special autonomous status for ethnic and linguistic reasons. Sicily was given the status of a special autonomous region in consideration of the historical and social peculiarities symbolized by the so-called southern problems . Following Sicily, Sardinia, the second largest island in the Mediterranean, was granted the status of special autonomy due to its geographical and economic disadvantage, based not on its historical and social peculiarities, but on its location of island area. The special autonomous regions need to be tied up within the territory of Italy as one nation with two systems , by guaranteeing high autonomy to the regions, which caused difficulties in national integration and the formation of new nationality. It was in the 1990s that big changes in the local autonomy of Italy occurred. Until the 1970s, the establishment of the ordinary regions and the transfer of powers to them, it represented only the establishment of suspended regions.