La legge dei rapporti economici nella giurisprudenza della Corte costituzionale: una strana e complessa teogonia

The most recent Italian Constitutional Court rulings on State-owned companies, contrary to what one might believe, make clear that the whole matter is now regulated mainly by the legislative power of the State, being competition the fundamental benchmark criteria used in such rulings.The judicial review of State laws is not in fact carried out by the Court with reference to Article 117 of the Constitution, but rather as a judgment on the internal reasonableness of such laws. In this way, the legislative power of the Regions plays a mere residual role, coming into consideration only when State laws prove to be unreasonable or unable to meet the primary objective, i.e. competition. In the proceedings concerning the constitutionality of State laws, Regions appear to be entitled only of indirectly protected interests. The analysis of such rulings raise two further points.The first is the far-reach- ing reform of the previous constitutional doctrine on private law as a limit to regional laws. Now such limit appears to be deeply strengthened.The second is the new role played by the Constitutional Court which is no longer limited to reviewing the constitutionality of the laws, but appears to be much closer to that of a body regulating the new institutional framework. Indeed the Court aims at drawing new boundaries to local authorities and their powers and grants to the State greater room of action than what the reform of Title V of the Constitution and Articles 117 and 118 of the Constitution seem to suggest.