CONSTITUTIONAL DIALOGUES ON ELECTORAL LAW

Abstract

On the premise that the proportionality test is a common and shared practice between European Constitutional Courts and European Court of Justice, the Italian Constitutional Court – explicitly engaging with judicial foreign precedents – affirmed that also in a case in which the legislative discretion is wide (like in the case of the electoral law for the Parliament), the proportionality and reasonableness test must be followed to review the constitutionality of the law at stake: the restrictions to the fundamental rights of the citizens (i.e. the principle of equality of the vote) are subjected to the rule of balancing and to the rule of proportionality, so the majority prize and the closed-list of party candidates running for election (two main and contested aspects of the Italian electoral law under scrutiny) are clearly unconstitutional.