The Five Star Movement is celebrating the cut in pensions, but it's yet another populist trend.

So the Five Star Movement never left Montecitorio. And their barroom populism continues to wreak havoc. " Since Italy became a Republic, no court has ever issued a ruling like this," said Giuseppe Gargani, president of the former parliamentarians' association, commenting on the Montecitorio Court of Appeal's decision Tuesday evening to reject the appeals filed by over a thousand of his colleagues regarding cuts to pensions. "This is a political ruling issued by judges lacking the autonomy, impartiality, and impartiality required by the Constitution and the European treaties," Gargani added, calling on all jurists to evaluate it on its merits to defend Parliament's prerogatives.

Indeed, it's very difficult, even for the most experienced, to understand the reasoning of the Chamber's Appellate Panel, chaired by Ylenja Lucaselli (FdI) and composed of Ingrid Bisa (Lega), Pietro Pittalis (Forza Italia), Marco Lacarra (PD), and Vittoria Baldino (M5S), which overturned the Senate's 2022 measure that abolished the pension cuts for former senators. "This serious irregularity, which applies only to former deputies, highlights the lingering resentment toward those who have honored Parliament in the past and are entitled to respect for their rights," Gargani added, reiterating that no one had asked for special privileges, only for fairness in the cuts. The panel's decision is, without a doubt, a victory for the Five Star Movement and their leading newspapers, starting with Il Fatto Quotidiano , which for days, in the run-up to the ruling, waged a relentless campaign to defend Roberto Fico 's resolution against the hated elite. " It was 2018. I had been elected Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies just a few weeks before, but the decision to abolish pensions was one of the first things I decided to do," the former first occupant of Montecitorio immediately commented. "No revenge, no punishment. Just justice and equality. The resolution puts an end to a hated privilege and saves the Chamber of Deputies tens of millions of euros," Fico added, emphasizing that over one hundred million euros have been saved since 2019.

On the day of the Five Star Movement's triumph, Giuseppe Conte 's statement was inevitable: " We have achieved an important result in a historic battle for the Five Star Movement; we have saved the cuts to pensions sought by the Five Star Movement." According to the Chamber of Deputies, pensions, not being a pension, can be modified at will, even ex post facto , and for a worsening outcome without any specific justification. Indeed, simply declaring the public interest in containing costs is sufficient to endorse draconian cuts, in some cases as high as 90 percent. With many thanks to those who instead advocated the principle of "reliance." "Forza Italia acknowledges the Chamber's decision and does not enter into the merits of the legal assessments, which are undoubtedly the result of a careful examination of the issues submitted by the parties to it ," commented Raffaele Nevi, party spokesperson and deputy group leader in the Chamber of Deputies. “ Now, however, we have two distinct criteria, one for the Chamber and another for the Senate, which does not justify this unequal treatment and which politicians must address ,” added Nevi.

This morning, however, the Bureau of the Association of Former Parliamentarians will meet in Rome. A press conference is scheduled to follow at Montecitorio, where the formal documents and subsequent procedures approved by the body will be outlined. Attorney Maurizio Paniz , a three-term member of Parliament responsible for handling appeals, has already announced that he will continue the fight with an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. However, the process is expected to be lengthy, with the risk that a decision will be reached after many of the appellants, for reasons of age, are no longer around.

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Paul Comi