Too many appeals to the Regional Administrative Court
Even in the current hunting season, we were forced to watch the ballet of the TAR. The recurring associations - animal rights or environmentalists little change - have divided the objectives, going to hit the majority of the Regions and aiming straight at the heart of the hunting calendars. The fixed, unavoidable basis of the appeals was once again the opinion issued by Ispra, although at times additional reasons were added, such as the alleged absence of the environmental impact assessment (Vinca), as well as the new entry of drought , contingent hold deriving from the anomalous weather trend of the late spring and summer months. It was therefore further revealed, if ever there was a need, how the "technical" opinion of the aforementioned institution is practically equated with administrative justice in accordance with the law and, therefore, is understood as almost binding even if it is not (would be). It is true that the Regions can (could) deviate from it provided they justify the deviation, but we now have numerous evidence, accumulated over the years, of how this deviation is almost impossible to motivate to the point of "reassuring" the TARs on the correctness and legitimacy of the regional choices.
The ISPRA problem
This is the first reflection. The second concerns the problem of Ispra's dependence on a single ministry, the MITE, which spoils and politically conditions the evaluations and indications contained in the opinions. It is well known that Ispra employees are excellent technicians and researchers, far from us wanting to diminish their work: certainly, not all of them are equidistant from hunting, but their skills are not scarce, quite the contrary. Too bad, then, that the dependence on a single political subject inevitably guides the evaluative guidelines, which are transcribed on the digital documents transmitted to the Regions. In a not so distant time, when the INFS still existed, state law had wisely placed it under the supervision of the Prime Minister, the second position of the State, to guarantee impartiality and serenity of management. Then, with a view to alleged simplification, Ispra was established in June 2008, merging together in this super-institute three previously independent entities (APAT, ICRAM and INFS) and placing it in direct dependence and supervision of the Ministry of the Environment ( today MITE).
Paradoxical sentences
At the time - Berlusconi IV ruled, just for memory - the perniciousness of this choice for hunting was not grasped, which instead proved abundantly in the following years. The third reflection relates to the changeability of the assessments and decisions taken by the TAR of regions even bordering on each other, or of regions albeit distant but with regard to species that share much larger spaces than small Italy, such as migrants, which should be approached on even continental scale. We have therefore witnessed pronouncements that, as in the case of Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, have had paradoxical results: on the left bank of the Po, then in Lombardy, hunting for waterfowl closed until 30 September, on the right bank of the Po, then in Emilia-Romagna, hunting for waterfowl open from 18 September. With the result, inexplicable and almost comical in the eyes of any citizen-hunter, that the same mallards or teals would be hunted or not, simply from which bank they chose to fly along! The fourth reflection derives directly from the previous one: the rules for the functioning of administrative justice should be reconsidered and rewritten, at least in part. The monochromatic suspension decrees adopted unheard of alters part - translating the decrees adopted by the president of the TAR alone without meeting the council chamber and without hearing the defense of the party whose provision is challenged, in our case the Regions - the day before the opening of the hunting season or a few days after it has started, constitute an act seriously damaging the interests of the citizens who practice the hunt: who have done everything and paid everything in order to exercise their passion in a predetermined period, which instead is heavily affected and curtailed.
A real joke
The further insult, frequently occurring, is then constituted by the fact that the calendar, in whole or in part, is suspended in the first instance and then the final decision on whether the suspension was justified or not (on the merits, as they say ), is adopted by the council chamber (i.e. by the entire college of judges belonging to the TAR) when the suspended regional provisions would in any case have ceased to be effective. See what has been decided by the Veneto Regional Administrative Court on the current hunting calendar: among the suspended regional provisions, there are the two additional weekly days of hunting migratory stalking, which, as is well known, can only be foreseen in the period 1 October / 30 November. The TAR has suspended the effectiveness of these days, so those who hunt from stalking will be able to practice for a maximum of three days a week, as for those who practice roaming hunts. The mockery lies in the fact that the hearing on the merits, that is the one in which the TAR will definitively decide whether it was a good decision to suspend the two supplementary days, was set for November 30th, therefore precisely at the end of the period in which the migrant workers from shed could have benefited from the five days of hunting per week. The easy prophecy that we venture today is that the TAR will pronounce itself by declaring the lack of interest in the regional provision, which in any case would have expired on 30 November and therefore, essentially, not deciding anything on the merits, that is, not deciding on the fact that it has done "good or bad" to suspend. Unless then a similar situation recurs in 2023/24.
Troubled hunters
It is a pronunciation that is very reminiscent of the famous saying "horned and hammered", naturally addressed to hunters. These mechanisms must be reviewed, especially with a view to an evident, long-standing malfunction of the Italian justice system, including the administrative one. The fifth and final reflection is a bitter observation: the reduction of the duration of the hunting season and of the list of huntable species, hitherto never achieved through legislation, is being achieved in the courtrooms. The 157 is essentially stopped in 1992 and the hunting world itself has often declared that it is inappropriate to get involved, given the risk of a serious worsening of the already bad situation. Probably, even the opponents of hunting have come to the same conclusions on the difficulty of a modification of the state rule, also in the sense that they would like it, that is, pejorative for the hunters. However, instead of standing still, they cunningly set out on another path, that is, the one we have just passed quickly in review. Ram head Ispra (on MITE mandate), with the approval (and not always tacit) assent of the EU commission offices, with the judicial “wash your hands” of the TAR pilates, the ordinary local hunting season (ie excluding selection and ungulates), is dangerously settling on the period 1 October / 20 January, which risks turning in a few years into 1 October / 31 December and with a heavily reduced list of huntable species, especially in the aquatic migratory sector, seasoned with cutting of terrestrial species such as lark and wild dove. And the important orders / judgments rejecting the appeals that have been there again this year, as in Emilia-Romagna, Marche and Umbria, may not be enough to reverse the trend. We will see - because we write first - if the outcome of the vote of 25 September will put the last tombstone on Italian hunting, or will restore faint hopes to passionate practitioners. Good luck! (source: ANUU).