Premessa. Il precedente nel parlamentarismo maggioritario

The resort to precedents has always been very frequent in parliamentary law. The written provisions of the parliamentary Rules of procedures cover just a limited part of the innumerable cases and events that can arise within the lively and often unpredictable life of the elective assemblies. Often the great pressure put on the Parliament by politics and by political circumstances is so strong that a certain interpretation of the Rules of procedure can become mandatory or that their derogation or non-application is somewhat compulsory. On those occasions, usually a significant precedent is established. Furthermore, uncodified rules have always played a major role in parliamentary dynamics and with regard to the actual functioning of the forms of government. Since the setting up of the Italian parliamentary system and throughout the history the Chamber of Deputies and Senate precedents have counted a lot, as has been pointed out by parliamentary advisors, although an explicit acknowledgment of the word «precedent» is lacking in the Rules of procedure. In particular parliamentary precedents seem to have become crucial following the transformation of the political and institutional system of 1993. This depends, on the one hand, on the fact that in the last twenty years the Rules of procedure of both Chambers have undergone few and very limited modifications. Thus their structure is still that the one established in 1971, though with the substantial amendments approved in the 1980s (and to a lesser extent in the following decade, in the Chamber of Deputies). On the other hand, the centrality of parliamentary precedents is the result of the material changes which took place in the last two decades in the form of government (as regards the relationship between the Executive and the Parliament and between majority and opposition) and in the form of state (as a consequence of the enhancement of self-government and the deepening of the European integration process); changes which have been mirrored in the functioning of parliamentary assemblies.