ITALY'S centre left government, led by Prof Romano Prodi, last night successfully resorted to a controversial confidence vote in the Senate to force through a draft law concerning the status of non EU immigrants.
The government's decision provoked immediate protests from the opposition, with the Alleanza Nazionale deputy, Mr Maurizio Gasparri, calling it "another demonstration of the Soviet style arrogance of the Prodi government". Given that the government has a comfortable majority in the Senate, it ran little risk last night but will find itself facing an entirely different situation when the same legislation comes before the Chamber of Deputies.
The draft law concerned some 250,000 non EU immigrants whose legal status in Italy had been regularised by government decrees which, however, no longer apply. A strict interpretation of the law - or in this case lack of law - could mean that these 250,000 immigrants are now due for expulsion. The purpose of last night's draft law was to safeguard their legal right to stay in Italy.
At the heart of the problem highlighted by this confidence vote is the fact that Italian governments have traditionally governed by ministerial decree, ratifiable in parliament 60 days later. A constitutional court decision last month, however, called an abrupt halt to this practice when it decreed that it was unconstitutional to reissue decrees ad infinitum, arguing that such decrees should be converted into a Bill and put before parliament.
In the case of the immigration legislation before the Senate last night, the Interior Minister, Mr Giorgio Napolitano, argued that the government had no choice but to resort to a confidence vote given that the opposition had tabled just under 7,000 amendments, making it impossible to meet the urgent requirements of the immigrants' situation.