ABSTRACT: Contains excerpts of a letter addressed by Marco Pannella to all parliamentarians, calling "a meeting at seven a.m." to "face [...] the attempts to delegitimate" Parliament. Pannella underlines that the current Parliament is the "most adequate" of the last thirty years. It is necessary to resist the atmosphere of resignation that would ultimately foster a real "anti-Parliament and anti-democratic" campaign. The crisis of the parties entails a "totally new" relationship between these and the single parliamentarian. "Formal innovations in terms of parliamentary organization" must therefore be devised, or Parliament will be condemned to a sort of "agony". The problem posed by the fact that "a Parliament is elected...for the length of a legislature" must be tackled. Whatever our "mistakes", as members of Parliament we have the "duty" of defending the life of Parliament and of the legislature, also with the purpose of carrying out the necessary institutional reforms. We must then insist to obtain a true

"Anglo-Saxon" reform of the electoral system, in the meanwhile supporting the governments that guarantee "a determined attack" against the public debt.

(1994 - IL QUOTIDIANO RADICALE, 25 November 1993)

Rome, 21 April 1993

Along with a few other parliamentarians I am trying to resist, at all times and in all places, the attempt made to delegitimate Parliament.

It is not out of mere reaction or out of the desire to start a controversy that I repeat that this is one the "best" Parliament of the last thirty years. Of this I am convinced.

I insist on the fact that it is the "most "adequate" and that it must now become "adequate".

The atmosphere of passive resignation or angered reaction which could endorse what is just a questionable opinion, if not an anti-democratic and anti-Parliament campaign, must be opposed.

According to the Constitution, we are the elected representatives of the nation, not the representatives of our parties and lists.

These parties are experiencing an historical period of crisis, of radical more than formal changes. A new specific political and institutional experience is emerging which will necessarily transform them radically.

Our relationship with the parties on whose lists we have been elected, as parliamentarians of the Republic, becomes totally new, and must be objectively transformed. New political subjects are in the making. This implies, in my opinion, formal innovations in terms of parliamentary organization. Failing this, Parliament itself is condemned to a sort of agony, not unlike the agony of many parties, including the ones that harbour the hope of somehow escaping this process. It is an agony that will necessarily jeopardize its ability to effectively fulfil the tasks it is called to.

As parliamentarians we cannot but face the problem posed by the fact that a Parliament is elected, in principle, for the length of a legislature, not for two or three years. If we disregard this we would contribute ourselves to delegitimating ourselves as such and accepting the situation neglecting our specific role. Clearly we have the possibility of doing this: but as politicians, as citizens; we can, therefore, privilege these aspects of our single lives with respect to our office as members of Parliament, but only by resigning, the facto if not de jure, from our office, from our civil and ideal service. Whatever our mistakes, political and individual, until the terms and conditions provided by the law exist, we have the duty to uphold the life of Parliament, of this Parliament, by every possible and legitimate means (...).

The objectives we consider necessary and of primary importance are:

1) Upholding the legislature for reasons of principle and opportunity and for constitutional and political reasons. We need to do this though concrete actions, obviously, and with uttermost energy and determination within Parliament and the country. The necessary electoral, institutional and constitutional reforms we will carry out will need to become executive within the time allowing the country to prepare for them and guarantee their success.

2) Reform of the electoral system: Anglo-Saxon, single-ballot system without corrections for the Chamber, and confirmation of the results of the referendum for the Senate. Any other option would sacrifice small and medium parties or would make very little difference.

3) Support the governments whose composition and platform are such as to secure a policy based on a determined attack against the public debt, and not just policies aiming to contain the yearly deficit, possibly resorting to the cooperation of the international community, public and private, of the European Union and of the allied states, in this process;

Relaunching the foreign and Italian EC policy, which has undergone a structural, strategic and political crisis since 1946; uttermost commitment against fiscal evasion; abatement or modification of the mechanisms of public intervention to support the productive and labour system through more direct and transparent forms of intervention.

Translator's notes

(1) PANNELLA MARCO. Pannella Giacinto, known as Marco. (Teramo 1930). Currently President of the Radical Party's Federal Council, which he is one of the founders of. At twenty national university representative of the Liberal Party, at twenty-two President of the UGI, the union of lay university students, at twenty-three President of the UNURI, national union of Italian university students. At twenty-four he advocates, in the context of the students' movement and of the Liberal party, the foundation of the new radical party, which arises in 1954 following the confluence of prestigious intellectuals and minor democratic political groups. He is active in the party, except for a period (1960-1963) in which he is correspondent for "Il Giorno" in Paris, where he established contacts with the Algerian resistance. Back in Italy, he commits himself to the reconstruction of the radical Party, dissolved by its leadership following the advent of the centre-left. Under his indisputable leadership, the party succeeds in

promoting (and winning) relevant civil rights battles, working for the introduction of divorce, conscientious objection, important reforms of family law, etc, in Italy. He struggles for the abrogation of the Concordat between Church and State. Arrested in Sofia in 1968 as he is demonstrating in defence of Czechoslovakia, which has been invaded by Stalin. He opens the party to the newly-born homosexual organizations (FUORI), promotes the formation of the first environmentalist groups. The new radical party organizes difficult campaigns, proposing several referendums (about twenty throughout the years) for the moralization of the country and of politics, against public funds to the parties, against nuclear plants, etc., but in particular for a deep renewal of the administration of justice. Because of these battles, all carried out with strictly nonviolent methods according to the Gandhian model - but Pannella's Gandhi is neither a mystic nor an ideologue; rather, an intransigent and yet flexible politician - h

e has been through trials which he has for the most part won. As of 1976, year in which he first runs for Parliament, he is always elected at the Chamber of Deputies, twice at the Senate, twice at the European Parliament. Several times candidates and local councillor in Rome, Naples, Trieste, Catania, where he carried out exemplary and demonstrative campaigns and initiatives. Whenever necessary, he has resorted to the weapon of the hunger strike, not only in Italy but also in Europe, in particular during the major campaign against world hunger, for which he mobilized one hundred Nobel laureates and preeminent personalities in the fields of science and culture in order to obtain a radical change in the management of the funds allotted to developing countries. On 30 September 1981 he obtains at the European parliament the passage of a resolution in this sense, and after it several other similar laws in the Italian and Belgian Parliament. In January 1987 he runs for President of the European Parliament, obtaini

ng 61 votes. Currently, as the radical party has pledged to no longer compete with its own lists in national elections, he is striving for the creation of a "transnational" cross-party, in view of a federal development of the United States of Europe and with the objective of promoting civil rights throughout the world.