Law and Lawyers Inside

law violate the Italian Constitution

The rest of the regional law is still valid, even if the government had asked to declare all of it uncostitutional because of these and other alleged violations. It’s early to draw complete conclusions and I am not a lawyer, but it looks quite likely to me that this sentence will surely have some important consequences, possibly even on all other italian regional laws on Free Software and Open digital standards. The reason why I am saying this isn’t the sentence itself as much as the fact that what I just said had been largely anticipated on June 13th, 2009, in the italian Free Software Conference. Here are the notes I took that day, synthesizing what lawyer Ernesto Belisario was saying in his talk about, of all things, “potential problems in italian regional laws about Free Software”:

* What is the interest of a Local Public Administration? To establish ethical norms or to save money, produce efficience and other concrete services?
* Norms establishing principles are (at least at the regional level) useless and have very little practical effects. Those norms must say who must do what and what are the sanctions for people who fail to comply
* Are we sure that italian regions are allowed to legislate on these themes, when we look at Article 117 of the Constitution?
* Any law regarding Free Software has impacts on:
o market competition
o public tenders
o copyright
o coordination of ICT policies
* The first two subjects are competence of the State, not of the Regions
* The third goes against state laws on copyright, at least when it says or implies that such laws don’t apply to Free Software
* Are such laws appealable before the Constitutional Court?
* The virdict about the Piedmont law will create a precedent
Can you see now what the real problem is? Especially considering that even recent law proposals at the national level aren’t so robust after all? This sentence may be just the first confirmation that several laws already approved, even with the best intentions, are in fact weak enough to not be enforceable. At this point, I really wonder how many local Free Software laws in other Countries are in the same situation. If you know the answer, please tell me! As far as Italy is concerned, it will be very interesting to hear what the new Piedmont Regional Council, that will be elected on March 29th 2010, will say about this, since there should be in it at least some of the 31 candidates that had officially committed to support Free Software if elected. Even other italian Regions, however, will have to rethink very carefully their Free Software strategies.