Diritto Pubblico Comparato ed Europeo

Sommario

1. Introduzione. – 2. Alcuni quesiti preliminari. – 3. Devolution e regionalizzazione. – 4. Le asimmetrie devolutive, dalla struttura alla forma costituzionale. – 5. New politics, varianti parlamentari e asimmetrie dei diritti fondamentali. – 6. Percorsi e problematiche del neoregionalismo inglese. – 7. Un recente “libro bianco” governativo: linee generali.

AbstractThe wide-ranging process of constitutional devolution that started in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland following the electoral landslide of Blair’s “New Labour”, is now close to embracing the whole of the United Kingdom through a regionally-reformed shape of territorial government in England. Is regional government a part of devolution, as some decades ago John P. Mackintosh wrote in his well-known essay The Devolution of Power and even the Royal Commission on the Constitution incidentally stated in its Final Report? Or is devolution just a functional process of a radically new project of territorial decentralization of government functionality? Which connections are there between the devolution process in the “national” areas within the United Kingdom, the restoration of the presidentialized Mayoralty in Greater London and the present parliamentary-style regionalization of England, and the connections (if any) of all this with the federal issue? Which constitutional implications can be duly pointed out between asymmetrical devolution, on one hand, and new forms of parliamentary rule, new dimensions in basic rights, new forms of politics and new links with the present constitution-making in the European Union, on the other hand? How far can we consider the Greater London experiment and the forthcoming English regional units as actual parts of the devolution process? The first part of the essay tries to give a response to some basic constitutional questions by approaching the essential terms of the devolution-regionalization issue in Britain with an the inquiry that ranges from the traditional debate to the May 2002 White Paper Your Region, Your Choice. Revitalising the English Regions (an important document whose terms and effects on the reform process are dealt with in more detail in the second part of this piece of work).