In brief
On 6 May 2024, the Constitutional Court declared the constitutional illegitimacy of Article 36, paragraphs 1 and 2, of Law No. 449/1997 for violating Articles 3, 111 and 117, paragraph 1, of the Constitution. The Court, indeed, found that these provisions, allegedly introduced with the aim of providing an authentic interpretation of Article 8, paragraph 12, Law No. 537/1993 (which had introduced a price surveillance regime for medicines), aimed at interfering with multiple ongoing judgments in which the public administration was involved.
Key takeaways
In this case, the Legislator had intervened through paragraphs 1 and 2 of the aforementioned Article 36 to offer an authentic interpretation of the aforementioned Article 8. These provisions were applicable also retroactively, thus also to the multiple pending judgements involving the public administration, to which claims were also submitted.
On this point, the Court ruled that the provisions covered by the questions raised "evidently aimed at affecting judgments in which the public administration is a party; judgments of which it is intended to frustrate or in any case condition the outcome, also with reference to the related compensation profiles". The Court, indeed, argues that "this purpose emerges from the preparatory works", which reveal no reasons that can justify said retroactive intervention "other than the need to overcome the reasons of illegitimacy endorsed by the Council of State that annulled the CIPE (Inter-ministerial Committee for Economic Planning and Sustainable Development) resolution", the competent authority on the matter.
The Court, therefore, insisted that, since the objective pursued was to sterilize the effects of the Council of State's ruling, the provisions in question must be deemed constitutional illegitimacy in violation of the principles of due process and the equality of the parties before the courts established by Articles 3, 111 and 117, paragraph 1, of the Constitution, and, through the latter, by Article 6 ECHR.
