Italy’s
Leader Wants to Change the Constitution. Italians Don’t Get It.
Voting
starts Sunday on a referendum to overhaul Italy’s judiciary. Many people don’t
understand the complex proposal — and it could hurt Prime Minister Giorgia
Meloni.
By Motoko
Rich and Josephine de La Bruyère
Reporting
from Verona, Italy
March 22,
2026
For more
than three years, Giorgia Meloni, the first female prime minister of Italy, has
led one of the nation’s most stable governments, keeping her coalition intact
for longer than all but two of her postwar predecessors.
Yet this
week, she faces a rare threat to her authority in the form of a tightly fought
referendum being held on Sunday and Monday that polls suggest Ms. Meloni may
struggle to win. The prime minister is seeking support for proposed changes to
Italy’s Constitution that are so complicated, hardly anyone completely
understands them.
Instead,
voters may end up treating the polls as a referendum on the prime minister
herself.
“The
majority of Italians don’t know anything about this or have a very vague idea,”
said Roberto D’Alimonte, a political scientist at Luiss Guido Carli University
in Rome.
As a
result, he said, Italians — if they vote at all — will most likely “vote along
political lines, not on the substance.”
The
government’s proposal would, among other changes, divide oversight of judges
and prosecutors, who are now jointly overseen by a single authority, and create
a new council to discipline them. It would also make it harder for a judge to
become a prosecutor, and vice versa.
Supporters
of the idea say this would prevent too cozy a relationship between the judge
presiding over a case and the prosecutor pursuing a conviction. Ms. Meloni has
argued that it would make the justice system “more just, more efficient, more
meritocratic and more free.” She has frequently accused judges of impeding her
efforts to combat illegal immigration and making politically motivated
decisions.
Though
Ms. Meloni did not place the change at the center of her election campaign, she
is channeling a long-held complaint from Italian politicians that jurists had become too powerful.
Critics
disagree. Margaret L. Satterthwaite, a United Nations expert who researches
judicial independence, said in an interview that the changes might give
politicians undue influence over the judiciary because their appointees could
have more of a role in supervising and disciplining judges.
In the
run-up to the vote, political mudslinging has reached peak proportions.
The chief
of staff to Ms. Meloni’s justice minister compared prosecutors and judges to
“firing squads.” A prosecutor dismissed the measures by saying that they were
supported by the mafia and “fringe” Freemasons. Ms. Meloni warned that without
the changes, “illegal immigrants, rapists, pedophiles and drug dealers” would
jeopardize public safety.
Voters
say they are fed up with what they see as a barrage of propaganda and an
absence of clear information. “More than anything else, it bothers me that
politicians keep taking sides,” said Massimiliano Scarpi, 48, a banking analyst
who was taking a smoking break in Verona, a midsize northern city.
After a
long day at work, Mr. Scarpi said, “I don’t have the head space” to look “for
what’s hard to find — that is, someone to explain it to me.”
For many
Italians, the Constitution, ratified in 1947, is a sacred document protecting
them from the return of fascists like Benito Mussolini, an ally of Hitler who
led Italy until 1943. Efforts to tamper with the Constitution — particularly by
a prime minister whose party can trace its roots to the ashes of Italian
Fascism — are regarded with suspicion.
Even
amendments proposed from the left have not fared well: A decade ago, when the
prime minister at the time, Matteo Renzi, proposed a constitutional overhaul to
reduce the size of the Italian Senate drastically, voters rejected the measure
and Mr. Renzi resigned.
As
Italians absorb news reports about the Trump administration’s efforts to
influence the American judiciary, “it does contribute to a global climate where
you say, ‘Well, let’s be careful,’” said Jean-Pierre Darnis, a professor of
Italian politics and contemporary history at the Université Côte d’Azur in
France.
Unlike in
Mr. Renzi’s case, Ms. Meloni has pledged to stay in office regardless of the
outcome.
Still,
Ms. Meloni’s support for the measure means that anything other than a
convincing “yes” vote could dent her political standing, Mr. Renzi said in an
interview. To make her feel secure going into an expected parliamentary
election next year, “she will be relaxed only if she wins with more than 60
percent,” said Mr. Renzi, who leads a small center-left opposition party.
Current polls show the “no” vote pulling slightly ahead.
Under the
current judicial system, an umbrella organization appoints and disciplines
prosecutors and judges. Under the new system, that body would be divided into
three different councils, one to manage the careers of prosecutors, another for
judges and a third to discipline both. Each council would be composed of
prosecutors and judges chosen by lottery — as well as political appointees who
would be chosen by lottery from a shortlist of law professors and experienced
lawyers nominated by Parliament.
Sabino
Cassese, a former judge on the Constitutional Court, described himself in an
interview as “a leftist” who “would never vote for Meloni.” He said he
supported the constitutional change because “impartial” judges should not serve
with prosecutors on the same oversight body.
Italy’s
National Association of Magistrates — which represents both judges and
prosecutors — opposes the plan. It warned that appointing lawyers by lottery
could give too much power to unqualified people and said the changes could
limit judicial independence.
“Not
everyone who has a driver’s license can drive a Formula One car,” said Cesare
Parodi, the head of the association.
Both
supporters and critics of the plan have struggled to explain their reasoning to
voters. Opponents say Ms. Meloni’s government has deliberately obfuscated its
proposals.
“You’re
not stupid if you’re not understanding,” said Marco Rossi, 33, a lawyer in
Verona, during a 90-minute presentation at a “vote no” event organized at a bar
by a far-left party. “That was the goal,” he said.
Carlo
Nordio, the justice minister, said in an interview that the opposition had
rejected the overhaul to tarnish Ms. Meloni, not because they necessarily
disagree with the need for change.
“A large
part of the opposition thinks that if the referendum is negative for the
government, Prime Minister Meloni will emerge very weakened,” he said. “And so
they have endowed this referendum with an extremely political meaning.”
For now,
the biggest risk for Ms. Meloni’s camp is the disengagement of voters.
Damiano
Tommasi, Verona’s left-leaning mayor, said he believed Veronesi are more
interested in resolving problems with public transit, labor shortages and how
to integrate immigrants.
The risk
is they treat the referendum as “an opinion poll about who proposed it,” he
said.
Damiano
Tommasi, Verona’s left-leaning mayor, this month.Credit...Alessandro Penso for
The New York Times
Motoko
Rich is the Times bureau chief in Rome, where she covers Italy, the Vatican and
Greece.
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