Guarding the rules of the game

Last weekend, Italians were asked to vote on a constitutional question touching on the justice system. For most people, this is not the sort of issue that stirs instinctive engagement. It is technical, distant and, at least on the surface, unlikely to affect the daily lives of most voters. The expectation, accordingly, was of low turnout and limited public interest.

And, yet, the outcome tells a different story.

To understand why, we need a moment of context. Italy’s constitution, born out of the wreckage of fascism, is deliberately difficult to amend. That difficulty is not accidental. It is the product of historical memory: a recognition that constitutions are not there to serve governments but to restrain them. Changing them is therefore meant to be arduous, requiring not only parliamentary approval but, in many cases, direct public endorsement through a referendum.

Italy has held a few such referenda over the decades. They can succeed but, in practice, they rarely do. Most high-profile attempts at constitutional reform have been rejected by voters.

More than anything, Italian constitutional referenda have functioned as a safety valve: a moment when citizens are asked not simply what policy they prefer but what kind of constitutional order they are willing to trust.

This latest vote was framed as a reform of the justice system. The details matter, of course, but they did not drive the outcome. Polling conducted after the vote suggests that, for a substantial part of the ‘No’ vote, the deeper question was whether this government could be trusted to alter the constitutional balance.

A significant number said no.

That refusal is striking, not because it signals a perfect democracy – Italy’s is anything but – but because it reflects a widely shared instinct about what a constitution is for. It is not an instrument for governments to expand their reach. It is a shield against that very tendency.

Even where a reform may have arguable merits, voters appear to have perceived a broader pattern: a government growing comfortable with power, seeking to recalibrate the system in ways that could tilt the balance in its favour. In that context, the safest answer was to resist.

There is also a forward-looking dimension. The current Italian government has made no secret of its ambition to pursue further constitutional changes, including reforms that would strengthen the powers of the head of government. The referendum result does not legally preclude such plans. But, politically, it forces that ambition into far more difficult terrain. It suggests that voters are not inclined to endorse constitutional changes that consolidate executive power, regardless of how they are packaged.

In that sense, the ‘No’ vote is not merely about the justice system. It is about a deeper constitutional culture: a suspicion of concentrated power and a willingness to act on that suspicion when given the opportunity.

It is difficult not to look at this from Malta without a measure of envy.

Here, the constitution is not treated as a higher law that stands above the day-to-day preferences of those in office. It is treated, too often, as an instrument to be adjusted whenever it becomes inconvenient. Amendments are frequent, debate is limited and public engagement is minimal.

Over time, this has normalised a dangerous idea: that the constitution is malleable, that it can be reshaped in the image of the government of the day without much consequence.

Consider something as fundamental as citizenship.

At independence, citizenship was placed in the constitution itself. That made sense. The constitution defines the state; citizenship defines who belongs to it. It is the foundation of the social contract.

Here the constitution is treated, too often, as an instrument to be adjusted whenever it becomes inconvenient- Manuel Delia

Important reforms were implemented in 1989, widening access and reflecting the reality of the Maltese diaspora. But, in 2000, a more consequential change was made. The constitutional chapter on citizenship was repealed and the matter was left to ordinary legislation. A foundational question of statehood was moved out of constitutional law and into the easier terrain of parliamentary amendment.

The implications of that shift became clearer over time.

It enabled the government to go further still in 2014. Through delegated legislation, the government introduced the investor-citizenship regime. A legal notice, issued by a minister, with minimal scrutiny, created a system through which Maltese citizenship could be granted in exchange for cold, hard cash.

This is not just a policy story. It is a constitutional one. It tells us how far we have drifted from the idea that certain questions – who we are as a political community, who gets to belong – should be insulated from the executive’s discretionary power.

And this is not an isolated example.

Successive governments do not merely propose constitutional amendments. They drive them through parliament, using control of the agenda and the majority they command. They return to the constitution again and again, often in piecemeal fashion, and rarely in a way that invites the country into a serious public argument about the kind of constitutional order it wants.

We do not get referenda on these questions. We do not get to say no.

And, perhaps more importantly, we have lost the habit of even asking whether we should.

There was a moment, more than a decade ago, when this might have been different. Labour promised, in its 2013 electoral manifesto, a constitutional convention that would give birth to a ‘Second Republic’: a broad, participatory process through which the country could reflect on its constitutional safeguards and consider how to strengthen them. That promise was never fulfilled.

Reform has proceeded in the opposite direction instead: incremental, technocratic and largely insulated from public debate.

It is a more convenient way to govern. But it is a weaker way to protect democracy.

Because a constitution that can be changed easily, and without meaningful public involvement, ceases to function as a constraint. It becomes, instead, an extension of ordinary politics, a tool to be used, rather than a framework to be respected.

The Italian referendum reminds us that this need not be the case.

Italian democracy has its own problems. It is not a model to be idealised. But, in this instance, it has demonstrated something we would do well to recover: a shared understanding that the constitution belongs to the people and that its primary purpose is to limit the power of those who govern in their name.

When given the chance, Italian voters chose caution over convenience. They chose to preserve the balance of their constitutional order rather than entrust it to the goodwill of a government, however legitimate its mandate.

We are rarely given that choice.

Perhaps that is the point.