We’re there! Yesterday we once again presented to the Senate the proposed law that we have been working on for some time.
A commitment we took on during the election campaign.
Italia dei Valori’s proposal stops anyone convicted from being a candidate and to sit in Parliament. We struggled to find the other signatures to support the document presented to our Senators.
In the end we used article 79 of the Senate’s internal regulations. This article obliges the presidency to accept and forward the text within one month if it is signed by 50% plus one of the members of a group.
The text will now come before the Justice Commission and then, if approved, it will go to the full house. This doesn’t mean that it is all downhill from here. Quite the opposite. We are at the first hurdle for a measure that is absolutely not well regarded by both the opposition and by the majority.
As often happens, there are many parliamentarians who tell us that we are right and that our battles are just, but when we ask them to give us a hand in Parliament, they move away looking at us as they we had the plague.
Right now in the Upper and Lower Houses there is a generous representation of convicts who have committed various crimes. At the same time we ask the citizens to respect the rule of law and we continue to say that the law must be equal for everyone.
There is discussion about which electoral law to be approved to modify the “pig” of a law produced by the Centre Right with which we were obliged to go to the urns for the last national election. Italia dei Valori wants the regulations about “not eligible to be a candidate” to be inserted into the electoral law whichever system finds agreement, and we ask that at the final vote on the draft law there is a vote in which the voters vote visibly.
In that way, we will know, and above all the Italian people will know who voted against and who voted in favour of a law that we believe is fundamental for an example of moral renewal that starts at the top and that the country urgently needs.
Yesterday the Antimafia Commission approved a self regulation code according to which the parties give a commitment not to put on their lists of candidates anyone who has a criminal conviction. This is a signal in the right direction. However, it’s a shame that this code of conduct is not obligatory.