Federcaccia Liguria announced through a press release the acceptance of the appeal presented by the Region against the resolution of the Council of Ministers of last January 15th which had anticipated the closing of the hunting season. The Regional Administrative Court gave reason to the body and to the federation that had promoted and supported the action, consequently the Ligurian calendar will end the next 31st January. The judges suspended the execution of the contested provision with immediate effect, motivating the decision with reasons of urgency: now the hunters will be able to conclude the hunting season in the ways and times that had already been established by the Region.
According to Federcaccia Liguria, it is an important recognition from the jurisprudential point of view and which has value not only for the northern region. Furthermore, the importance of the technical motivations brought by Liguria in support of its act was recognized. What prompted the TAR to suspend the resolution that provided for early closure? As can be read in the sentence, it was noted that the hunting calendar has acknowledged that the initial pre-nuptial migration movement occurs from the first ten days of February and that the catches recorded in the month of January do not show significant differences on the increase compared to the previous months.
The Court also underlined that with regard to the concrete methods of collection (from 1 to 31 January 2016), hunting for only two days a week and with a maximum limit of ten items per day. The two elements are fundamental to exclude the validity of the complaints: in practice, the Government resolution had to be based on a more in-depth analysis of the behavior of the poultry species (song thrush). In addition, the Ligurian judges ruled out that such a levy was indiscriminate. The choice of the CdM ten days ago caused controversy and reactions, but the TARs behaved differently.
In Tuscany, in fact, the appeal presented by the hunters was rejected and the hunting season ended early, while in Liguria the category will still have a few days to complete it regularly and as planned from the beginning. Other regions have been called into question, namely Umbria, Marche, Lombardy, Calabria and Puglia, in fact "commissariate" for not having adjusted the hunting calendar for the song thrush, the cesena and the woodcock. At this point, the decision of the Liguria TAR will represent an important precedent should similar situations arise in the future.