Why does a central government file a suit against a local government with the constitutional court?:

Request for constitutional review as an electoral strategy.

Abstract

It is a common phenomenon that a constitutional court rules a dispute between a central government and a local government. Under these institutional designs, why and when does a central government sue a local government? This paper argues that a central government requests for constitutional review of legislation of local government as a negative campaign against a local government whose partisanship is not affiliated with the central government. To test these hypotheses, this study examines the case of the Italian Constitutional Court, with which the Italian central government filed many suits against regional governments although the chance of central government’s success is low. The time-series cross-section analyses show two findings. First, lawsuits against a local government are more likely when national-level opposition parties are in control of the local government. And second, lawsuits against a local government whose partisanship is not aligned with national government increase when local elections are close and, therefore, the influence of lawsuits on the elections are expected to be larger. These findings suggest, even when a constitutional court can exercise its legal power independently, a national government can use a constitutional court to its own advantage just by filing a lawsuit.