“The sentence this morning of Lombardy Regional Administrative Court rejects the three main grounds of appeal proposed by the LAC Association, recalling theirs inadmissibility. We reiterate that the Sentence which is the result of the great juridical contribution and of the interventions ad opposendum of the Hunting Associations which, as always, carry out their infungible function ". To declare it is Barbara Mazzali, Regional Councilor of the Brothers of Italy. “Specifically: As for the first plea relating to the alleged violation of art. 18 paragraph 4 of the law n. 157/1992, which instead imposes the publication of the hunting calendar by June 15 of each year, the TAR stressed that "even if we want to ignore the fact that this decree does not exhaust the regional hunting regulations for the 2021/2022 season, the jurisprudence excludes that the aforementioned legal term of June 15 has peremptory character, being instead the same purely ordinatory (see TAR Liguria, Section II, sentence no. 1130/2013) ".
- With regard to the second plea, relating to the fact that the Lombardy Region approved its own hunting calendar not with an administrative act but with ordinary law (LR n. 17/2004), the Board has "dribbled" the question by noting that "Having ascertained the opposition of the administrative provision challenged to higher provisions of legislative rank (law n. 157/1992 in particular ), any question of constitutional legitimacy of regional law no. 17/2004, in application of which the decree encumbered therein was adopted "; as we shall see, however, the reception was merely minimal.
- As for the third ground of appeal on the alleged fragmentation and complicity of the regional hunting discipline, the administrative judge first noted that the regulation of the hunting season can be contained in a plurality of coordinated documents, to then highlight that "with regard to the knowability of the rules by individual hunters, it is known that each of them carries out hunting activities in the territory (ATC) or in the Alpine area (CAC) to which he is registered, for which he is required to know only the hunting rules in force in these territorial areas and certainly not in the entire Region ".
- The fourth ground of appeal, concerning the alleged conflict between the hunting calendar and the opinion issued by ISPRA, was accepted only to a (minimal) extent.
After having stated that according to the administrative jurisprudence "the Ispra opinion is mandatory but not binding" (see TAR Liguria, sentence no. secondary impact contained in the second part of the same reason. Well: the first - of significant impact since they relate to a large number of huntable species - were rejected as the LAC Association did not indicate concrete reasons why the discrepancy from the non-binding opinion of Ispra becomes a defect in the legitimacy of the contested determination. ; The second, relating to five species of birdlife, which for Lombard hunters are of particular interest due to deep-rooted hunting traditions, were accepted because "the regional discipline does not respect the Ispra opinion and the" Region has deviated (from said opinion, ed) without offering adequate reasons ".
Incredibly, today we are witnessing Councilor Rolfi's request for an apology because, according to him, the TAR gave reason for his work in relation to the methods and timing of adoption of the calendar. Probably the Councilor took a mistake because although the TAR did not completely censor the calendar adopted two days before the opening, this operating mode, or let's call it a strategy, sacrificed the legitimate interests of all Lombard hunters which have lost important days of activity and today find themselves with great limitations and / or exclusions of sampling for the species of particular hunting interest in our Region. And this is simply because its administrative structure did not adequately justify the deviation from the Ispra opinions !!! Political apologies should have only one direction, i.e. from Palazzo Lombardia to each individual Hunter.
I believe - underlines Mazzali - that Fabio Rolfi can be remembered in the history of hunting in Lombardy as the only Councilor who with his policies has brought hunting to its knees for two consecutive years, with negative and important economic and social repercussions. At this moment, the managers of the Region get to work immediately for a new resolution that gives "adequate reasons" to the deviations that have been made in the opinion of Ispra. If the Region does not give the right reasons, the result will be that hunting in Lombardy and Lombard hunters will be the only ones to go hunting with a calendar that will have no scientific basis but only an ideological basis, violating the legitimate interests of 65 thousand Lombard citizens. Result: we will have to go hunting in the neighboring regions and in those governed by the Left, such as Emilia Romagna and Tuscany, where everything works better in the hunting field and where the technicians know how to do their job ”concluded Mazzali.