La Corte costituzionale chiude la “saga Taricco”: tra riserva di legge, opposizione de facto del controlimite e implicita negazione dell’effetto diretto

This Insight focuses on the recent ruling delivered by the Italian Constitutional Court (ICC) on April 10th 2018, n. 115 (which has been lodged on May 31st 2018), on the so called Taricco affair. The author submits three main arguments. The first is that the ICC, by explicitly rejecting the possible compliance of the “Taricco rule” with both national legal order and EU law by virtue of the violation of the principle of legal certainty, impedes per se, erga omnes and pro futuro the application of such rule by Italian judges. The second is that the ICC implicitly denies the direct effect of Art. 325 TFEU, as well as of the Taricco rule: not even the Court of Justice may render directly effective a provision, such as Art. 325, paras 1 and 2, TFEU, that does not seem to be neither sufficiently clear nor unconditional. The third argument is that the ICC’s judicial activism in the field is the result of the undue judicial restraint and argumentative minimalism on the part of the Court of Justice with respect to the constitutional principles of EU law par excellence, i.e., direct effect and primacy.