Report No. 162

3.9 Italy.-

The new Constitution which replaced the old constitutional statute of 1848, was promulgated on December 27th, 1947 and came into force on January 1st, 1948. An Act of 1889 remolded the organisation of the Italian Council of State (Consiglio di Stato) establishing a new division besides the three old ones. The fourth division (or section) was vested with power to determine all complaints (ricorsi) against acts of administrative agencies whenever these applications were not within the province of the ordinary courts. In the exercise of this jurisdiction the Consiglio di Stato could decide on the legality of administrative acts.

The grounds which make an administrative act unlawful were described in the statute in the still living formula: incompetenza, eccesso di potere and violazioni di legge incompetence, excess of power and violation (or breach) of law, respectively. This jurisdiction of the Consiglio di State, being an equivalent of what French doctrine describes as the recours pour exces de pouvoir affords the remedy of annulment of unlawful Administrative action.