Hunting in Abruzzo: according to environmentalists, the Regional Council could not decide on the management of ungulates and asked for the document to be withdrawn; the commissioner Febbo denies.
According to the environmentalist councils led by Maurizio Acerbo, there has been an invasion of the field, or rather of competences, and they resort to the Regional College of Statutory Guarantees to verify the compliance of the Council's act on the management of ungulates with the regional Statute; for the Regional College, in fact, "The Regional Council of Abruzzo failed in the adoption of resolution number 605 of 2012 September XNUMX entitled" General guidelines for the management of wild boar populations and general principles of management for the deer and roe deer population ".
On 3 October, in fact, at the instigation of Maurizio Acerbo (Prc), 12 regional councilors (Cesare D'Alessandro, Camillo Sulpizio, Carlo Costantini, Franco Caramanico, Maurizio Acerbo, Antonio Saia, Paolo Palomba, Lucrezio Paolini, Walter Caporale, Gino Milan, Claudio Ruffini, Giovanni D'Amico) asked the College whether the act adopted by the Council on hunting was in compliance with article 13 of the Statute (the one which essentially attributes to the Council alone the legislative and regulatory function of and programming).
The councilors are convinced that the Executive has committed two types of infringement: it has adopted a regulatory and general policy act, (power reserved only to the Council), and has violated article 2 of regional law 10 of 2004 which attributes only to the Council the administrative functions of programming and coordination in wildlife-hunting planning.
The College, usually called to settle the conflicts between the organs of the Region in the interpretation of the Statute, gave full reason to the applicants. According to the members of the College, Fabrizio Politi, Stefano Civitarese Matteucci and Arnaldo Lucidi who met on 9 and 19 October at the regional council, "the alleged invasion by the Council of the functions reserved to the Council" is more than confirmed.
The college analyzed the adopted act in detail, first of all made sure that it was a regulation and then listed the reasons for its opinion. Whether it is a regulation, the college underlines, there is no shadow of a doubt given that the document contains all the requirements of such an act. In fact, the text contains indications on the hunting of ungulates (such as the types of weapons that can be used), the identification of technical figures authorized to manage ungulates, the assignment to the Provinces of the sanctioning power.
The regulatory nature is also confirmed by Law 10 of 2004 which gives the Executive the power to regulate and coordinate hunting activities as well as that of control, guidance, promotion and dissemination.
Therefore, for the judges there has been a violation and it is evident even in the event that a regional law expressly assigns regulatory power to the Executive.
In this case, in fact, the violation of the statute would emerge, which assigns the regulatory power to the board alone, given that a law must in any case be subject to a source that is higher than the statute.
The college then underlined the particularity of the Statute of the Abruzzo Region which, unlike that of the other regions, has reserved the regulatory function only to the Council, giving the Council the power of initiative on the matter.
"The opportunity that even the Regional Council, in compliance with the principle of legality, may have regulatory power - observed the members of the College - is certainly to be evaluated by the Regional Council itself, which could thus concentrate on the activity and leave to the regional council the adoption of secondary legislative acts implementing the decisions and choices made by the regional law ".
The regulation that for the first time governs the hunting of red deer and roe deer has aroused the indignation of the environmentalist world. The WWF, in fact, has begun to work on an appeal to the TAR to cancel this act defined as “contrary to the sensitivity towards the environment that has grown in the citizens of Abruzzo in recent decades”.
Also according to the environmental association the regulation contains numerous illegitimacy starting from the violation of the national framework law n. 394/91 on protected natural areas which exclusively assigns the authority to authorize abatement plans in extreme situations.
Instead, the act in question, while recalling the stipulation of generic agreements with protected areas, observed the environmentalists delegating exclusively to the Provinces the possibility of authorizing hunters to enter the parks to shoot.
“The Abruzzese deer and roe deer are safe - commented Acerbo - while Chiodi and Febbo make the usual fool. The College of Statutory Guarantees accepted my appeal against the resolution by which the Regional Council opened the way to hunting deer and roe deer in Abruzzo. We advise the councilor Febbo to meditate on the well-known proverb: pride starts on horseback and returns on foot ”.
The WWF expresses full satisfaction with the opinion of the College of Statutory Guarantees of the Abruzzo Region and asks President Chiodi to revoke the disputed Resolution "immediately" as otherwise the Abruzzo Region risks a new defeat before the TAR "which we will have to resort to since the Although authoritative, the opinion of the Board does not automatically result in the cancellation of the resolution. It is an appeal that we also launch to avoid further waste of public money, given that an appeal would involve the regional offices and the lawyers who are paid by the taxpayers. It is a clearly illegitimate resolution but, above all, contrary to the sensitivity of the vast majority of Abruzzo citizens and tourists who want to see free animals in our parks and in the rest of the territory and not characters with a weapon on their shoulders ”.
For the regional councilor for hunting, Mauro Febbo, on the other hand, there is "no procedural infringement by the regional council".
"The Hunting Management has knowledge and awareness of the competences, roles and functions that each organ of the Region is called to represent and even more of the authority that covers the Regional College of Statutory Guarantees".
This is the comment of the regional councilor for hunting Mauro Febbo, "Therefore I can reassure the College that the Regional Council of Abruzzo, in the adoption of resolution number 605 of 2012 September XNUMX, did not violate any parameter for the distribution of roles and powers of the bodies of the region".
“The opinion of the Board - explains Mauro Febbo - is neither mandatory nor binding, on the contrary the Regional Council can decide against the opinions of the Board by absolute majority, as governed by art. 5, paragraph 2 of LR December 11, 2007, n.42, Establishment and discipline of the regional college for statutory guarantees ".
"I have already stated on another occasion that Article 2 of the Regional Law 10/2004," Organic legislation for the exercise of hunting, the protection of homeothermic wildlife and the protection of the environment ", clearly lists the administrative functions of the regional bodies and specifies that the Regional Council exercises the administrative functions of programming and coordination for the purposes of wildlife-hunting planning, while the Regional Council exercises the administrative functions concerning control, the tasks of guidance, promotion, dissemination, of regulation and coordination of hunting activities as well as the substitute power in the cases provided for by law. Therefore, given that Resolution no. 605 only outlines provisions with a guiding nature, it follows that the competent body for their adoption was and remains the Regional Council. In any case, it is reiterated that the "Regional addresses", due to their nature and intrinsic content, do not represent anything comparable to a provision of a regulatory nature but fall within the category of acts of high administration at most, of indisputable competence of the executive body ".
"Therefore it should be noted that - concludes the regional councilor for hunting - the Regional law 10/2004 attributes to the Giunta not only the power of direction but also of regulation, while according to the members of the College the Statute of the Abruzzo Region prevails over any regional law . The regional offices are required to strictly observe the primary regulatory sources identifiable in the regional laws, from which they cannot ignore, nor are they allowed in any way to enter into the merits of any supposed conflicts with the regional statutory regulations, conflicts for which the the only competence of the Board to intervene ".
24 October 2012
Source: PrimadaNoi