Hunting: Sicily, the Sicilian Hunting Associations request a hearing from the Regional Councilor for Agricultural Forestry Policies for the new 2013-2014 Hunting Calendar.
With a letter sent to the Regional Councilor for Agricultural Forestry Policies, the Sicilian Hunting Associations, Federcaccia, Sicilian Federation of Hunting, Arci Caccia, Italcaccia and ASCN, formally requested a hearing in order to speak on the new 2013-2014 Hunting Calendar. "
Subject: request to be heard
Honorable Councilor,
we have informally learned, from the officials of the Wildlife-Hunting Service and from the local Departments, that the limitation of hunting mobility, contained in art. 5 of Annex A of the 2013/2014 Hunting Calendar, was adopted as a precaution to avoid unfavorable judicial rulings based on an alleged defect of unconstitutionality of art. 22 of LR 33/1997. The justification leaves us somewhat perplexed for a series of reasons that we pass on to resign.
A) The motivation informally communicated by the Officials has remained substantially unexpressed in the Calendar, whereas the limitation is instead adopted in alleged compliance with the opinion of ISPRA, which however, on this point, verbatim recommends “the need to limit mobility… in the case of ATCs which include the small Circumsicilian islands; here, in correspondence with the migration peaks, particularly high concentrations of hunters can occur with possible negative consequences ". It is obvious that ISPRA has not paid sufficient attention to the proposed regulation, which could already be considered satisfactory to the need represented by the Institute, excluding from the outset the ATCs constituted by the archipelagos of the smaller islands from the choice of areas for hunting migratory game. It is also true that the attention of ISPRA also invested tout court the choice of allowing a wide mobility of hunters, but the motivated finding of such a doubt could lead to solutions that were very different from the drastic exclusion of all mobility for migratory workers. .
B) If we were to believe what was reported by the competent officials, we would have to believe that, perhaps for the first time in history, an Administration has suspended the application of a law because it predicted its lapse by the Constitutional Court. However, this unusual caution would appear to us to be frankly excessive, considering in the first place that the provision in question - art. 22 paragraph 5 letter a) LR 33/1997 - was reformulated precisely following a ruling of unconstitutionality (Constitutional Court Sent. 4/2000) which invested the original discipline of "migratory mobility", in application of which indiscriminately granted to all hunters and starting from November 1st of each year, access to all ATCs in Sicily for hunting migratory game. Of course, it would not be the first time that the Legislator has replaced a provision declared unconstitutional with another equally flawed, but in this case it should be noted that the "new" formulation of art. 22, paragraph 5 letter a) has passed unscathed twice (LR 7/2001, LR 19/2005) the scrutiny of the State Commissioner (who has also paid particular attention to it, due to its genesis) and has not been never again made the subject of questions of constitutional legitimacy by the Sicilian Administrative Judge, who nevertheless had the opportunity.
Already in the judicial appeal of the CV 2009/2010, the environmental associations had foreshadowed a defect in the constitutionality of art. 22, paragraph 5 letter a), albeit formulating the complaint in absolutely inconductive terms and with reference to an alleged contrast with a provision of the Framework Law (Article 18, paragraph 6, L. 157/1992) which is completely impertinent; the question was therefore considered to be manifestly unfounded. On the occasion of the last appeal (CV 2012/2013) the appellants have instead more pertinently assumed a contrast between the aforementioned art. 22 letter a) and the principle affirmed by art. 14 L. 157/1992 (balanced distribution of hunters in the exercise of hunting). We are still awaiting the sentence that will define the relative judgment, but at present it is not even possible to imagine that the administrative judge can positively resolve on the relevance and validity of the question.
C) Ultimately, and at present, there is no provision that has judged the relevance and validity of the doubt of constitutional legitimacy foreshadowed by environmental associations, nor can a severe prognostic judgment be formed in this sense, considering that the law in question does not allow indiscriminate access of all Sicilian hunters to the entire regional territory, but leaves it to the prudent assessment of the Councilor the opportunity to allow, year by year, a mobility of migratory hunters in any case ex ante limited, both from a territorial point of view (a maximum of four areas) and from a temporal point of view (a number of days ranging from twenty to thirty). The rule, in and of itself, does not therefore seem to nullify the principles of the Framework Law, and a legitimacy review could, in our opinion, at this point only focus on the exercise of the Councilor's discretion and therefore, ultimately, on the administrative act in court. In this regard, we cannot fail to point out that other Regions of Italy, while not boasting exclusive legislative competence in hunting matters, have adopted a mobility system for migrants that is far more libertarian than ours: by way of example, Tuscany allows, starting from from 1 October, hunting mobility for all residents in any of the areas subject to the "purchase" of 5-day packages for each ATC, specifying that hunting for migratory stalking game, as well as for hunting wild boar , does not affect the density indices. On the other hand, it is clear that art. 14 of Law 157/1992 - which also provides for the possibility that individual administrative acts (resolutions of the ATC management committees) derogate from the hunting density indices - intends to pursue the objectives of optimal management of the sedentary fauna, where it is obvious that the operations of the fauna population census, at local or single ATC level, cannot usefully refer to migratory fauna. In short, it is reasonable to believe that the rigor with which the Legislator of '92 intended to pursue certain objectives (the bond of the hunter to the territory and the optimal management of wildlife resources) is attenuated with reference to migratory game, in consideration of the unpredictability of the flows of the avifauna and the consequent impossibility of planning a homogeneous collection by resorting to tools (hunting density indices) which are instead effective for rationalizing the collection of sedentary game.
D) The caution shown in adopting the incredible limitation pursuant to art. 5 of annex A of the CV (which effectively eliminated hunting mobility for hunting migratory game) therefore appears completely unjustified, especially if compared with other critical issues of the regulation adopted, which instead find a much higher and current probability of censorship. More generally, we did not understand the reason why the Hunting Calendar was issued in such a hurry, moreover pending the approval of the Plan and with such content, without consulting the hunting associations on this point. The whole story leaves us perplexed and the numerous doubts that crowd into our minds, as well as those of our associates and operators in the sector, must be immediately dispelled. In these hours, the devastating impact of the already hated art is being grasped by most. 5, which jeopardizes the very survival of the Sicilian hunting tradition; we believe that, likewise, the Administration can predict the equally devastating effects that the regulation will have on the regional economy and on the Treasury itself.
By virtue of the above, we ask you for an urgent meeting in order to obtain the requested clarifications and identify the most suitable solutions to the critical issues of the current hunting regulations.
Sure of your kind and prompt reply, we take this opportunity to send you our best regards.
Francesco Mistretta – Sicilian Federation of Hunting
Giuseppe La Russa - Italian Federation of Hunting - cons. Sicilian reg
Francesco D'Elia – Arcicaccia-Sicilian federative committee
Alessandro Mirabile – Italcaccia-Sicily regional commissioner
Domenico Portale-ASCN
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(June 25, 2013)