The constitutionalist Enzo Cheli: “The true date of birth of the Republic is June 13, 1946”

The real date of birth of the Italian Republic is not June 2, 1946, the day on which the institutional referendum took place, but the following June 13, exactly at quarter past midnight, when the transfer of power from King Umberto II to the president took place. of the Council of Ministers Alcide De Gasperi. The jurist and constitutionalist Enzo Cheli, judge of the Constitutional Court from 1987 to 1996, of which he was also vice president, argues in an article, as anticipated by Adnkronos, which appears in the new issue of the magazine “Nuova Antologia”, published by Giovanni Spadolini Foundation and Polistampa Editions. Professor Cheli, emeritus of constitutional law and state doctrine at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the ‘La Sapienza University of Rome’, argues his thesis on the basis of an autographed document kept by Professor Rodolfo Bracci, son of Mario Bracci, minister for Foreign Trade of the De Gasperi government from February 20 to July 1, 1946 and then judge of the Consulta from 1955 to 1959, the year of his death. The original version of the small version was recently deposited in the Historical Archive of the Presidency of the Republic. On June 12, 1946, Cheli reconstructs in his article, a letter had reached the Prime Minister in which the King reiterated his “determined will” to obtain, before any decision, the final ruling of the Supreme Court on the results of the referendum, already proclaimed two days earlier by the president of the Supreme Court, Giuseppe Pagano, in the Sala della Lupa in Montecitorio (12,672,767 votes to the Republic, 10,688,205 votes to the Monarchy). But at that point the Council of Ministers – in the context of which Mario Bracci testified, had created “a tension and an intolerance favorable to the action, even if the responsibilities to be assumed were serious” – decided to break the delay and immediately provide for the transfer of powers from Umberto II to De Gasperi based on the consideration (expressed in a press release) that the proclamation of the results made by the Supreme Court on June 10 had already led, pursuant to Lieutenant Decree No. 219 of April 23, 1946, “to establishment of a transitional regime during which, until the Constituent Assembly has not appointed the Head of State, the exercise of the functions of the Head of State itself “should be” ope legis to the President of the Council in office “. The Council of Ministers then established that this decision would become operative through a resolution whose drafting was entrusted to a commission composed of Pietro Nenni, Enrico Molè and Mario Bracci, which assumed the task of drafting the draft. In the original minute that Professor Cheli was able to consult, interesting corrections can be seen, such as the replacement of the word “powers” with the word “functions”. This document, Cheli argues, is “essentially the draft of the true birth certificate of our Republic which, after the troubled days following June 2, began its life at 0.15 am on June 13, when the Council of ministers adopted this resolution. From that precise moment the Kingdom of Italy ceased and the Italian Republic began its life “. “It is true that the King, informed of the Government’s decision on the morning of June 13, contested its legitimacy, but at the same time he accepted it in fact, leaving the Quirinal palace at 3.00 pm to take the road to exile. in Portugal – Cheli recalls – A reasonable gesture that avoided the risk of a civil war and that validated the birth of our Republic on the basis of that principle of effectiveness that jurists know well “. The” majestic path “of the Republic would have ended on the 18th June 1946 when the Supreme Court, deciding definitively on the disputes and appeals presented, confirmed the referendum result in favor of the Republic, while the government, with an agenda, took note of that ruling that eliminated any doubt of fact and law about the clear Republican decision of the referendum. Enzo Cheli concludes: “The Italian Republic was not, therefore, born on 2 June, the date of the referendum which rightly today we are celebrating, not on 10 June, the date of the first proclamation of the results of the Supreme Court, but from a quarter past midnight on 13 June 1946 and the document published in ‘Nuova Antologia’ is the minute of his birth certificate “. (by Paolo Martini)