The only distrust, regulations and political games

But the opposition was not satisfied with the censure motions. No, they demanded more: true motions of no confidence in the individual minister, despite the fact that several constitutionalists considered them to be in breach of the Constitution, since the government is not a salami that can be cut into slices.

Until then President of the Senate Francesco Cossiga put everyone in love and in agreement, showing that he is not an experienced Christian Democrat at all. He hit the circle and the barrel one.

Thus, in the session of October 24, 1984, on the basis of an opinion expressed by the majority of the Council by the regulation, Cossiga said yes to the motion of censure to a minister, making the opposition happy, but added that The procedure would be the one provided for in article 94 of the Constitution for the motion of censure to the government as a whole.

Therefore, it must be signed by at least one-tenth of the members of the Chamber, it cannot be questioned before three days after its presentation and, above all, it must be voted on by roll call. And this time it satisfied the majority. Rules then codified by House rules.

However, of the countless motions of no confidence submitted to a single minister since then, only one was passed: the one who voted against Justice Minister Filippo Mancuso in the Senate session on October 19, 1995. But the majority was the who presented it. and he approved it against a minister who, by sending the inspectors to the Milan prosecutor’s office, had contravened the government’s political discourse. Therefore, this motion was ultimately a substitute for the revocation of a minister by the head of state at the proposal of the prime minister that the Constitution does not expressly provide. And in the subsequent conflict of attribution raised by Mancuso, the Constitutional Court found the motion to be fully admissible for the individual minister.