Secessionist Impulses and the Italian Legal System: The (Non) Influence of the Secession Reference

The aim of this chapter is to analyse the impact of the Reference Re Secession of Quebec on the Italian legal system, looking at both the judgements of the Italian Constitutional Court and the strategies and narratives of the political actors. Italian comparative law scholarship has traditionally taken a keen interest in Canadian constitutionalism and its evolution. The Quebec Secession Reference is no exception. However, this chapter aims at looking beyond the scholarly debate in order to consider the influence of the Reference on the Italian constitutional system as a whole. The analysis is divided into two sections. The first section studies the presence and the evolution of distinct national or quasi-national identities and secessionist impulses in the Italian legal system and how they influenced the writing of the Italian Constitution and its more recent reforms. The second section, in turn, analyses the direct or indirect impact of the system designed by the Canadian Supreme Court on the Italian scenario, looking at the issues of the interpretation of Article 5 of the Constitution, the decisions of the Constitutional Court, and finally, the debates concerning the “secessionist laws” approved by the regional legislature of Veneto.