L’ emanazione del decreto-legge. I «più significativi esempi» e l’intensità costituzionale dei poteri del Presidente della Repubblica

In the first part of the essay, the author elaborates on the practice of the power of enactment by the Head of State, starting with the events recalled by President Napolitano in his letter to the President of the Council of Ministers on the Englaro case. The analysis is carried out on the basis of consultation of the documentation kept in the Archivio Storico della Presidenza della Repubblica, which allows a more careful interpretation of those cases, sometimes differing from the reconstructions offered by the mainstream literature. In the second part of the essay, the author questions the constitutional intensity of the presidential control over the decree-law, claiming that the Head of State not only can request the Government to re-examine the decree, but can also refuse to issue it when constitutionally illegitimate, regardless of the seriousness of the defect.