The Lower House justice committee on
Wednesday approved the Senate version of the government's civil
unions bill, paving the way for it to go to the House floor on
Monday, May 9.
Lawmakers from the center-right Forza Italia (FI) party, the
rightwing populist Northern League, and the small centrist Area
Popolare (AP) and DS-CD caucuses were absent in protest against
Premier Matteo Renzi's announced intention to put the bill to a
confidence vote.
The bill cleared its first major hurdle when the Senate
approved it with a vote of confidence on February 25 this year.
The motion was approved with 173 in favor, 71 against and
none abstaining. Senators from the anti-establishment 5-Star
Movement (M5S) boycotted the vote.
The bill passed after Renzi's center-left PD scrapped two
key measures in a compromise with Catholic conservatives - one
that would have allowed stepchild adoptions and the other
imposing a duty of fidelity.
The bill's rapporteur, PD Senator Monica Cirinna', said the
confidence vote on this watered-down version of the bill was a
hollow victory.
"It's first step - a victory with a hollow heart," said
Cirinna'. "This is a very important measure, but I am also
thinking of the children of so many friends".
"Now we must take a second step," Cirinna' said. "We're
halfway up the ladder".
Renzi hailed the vote on "a day that will remain in the
history of this legislature and of our country".
"By requesting a confidence vote, we bound the government's
very survival to a civil rights battle," the premier wrote on
Facebook.
On the following day, the Council of Europe called the
Senate vote "a first step" but said that in order for Italy to
fully comply with a ruling by the European Court of Human
Rights, it must eventually add a provision for same-sex couples
to adopt children.
"The text approved yesterday by the Italian Senate is in
line with what the European Court of Human Rights asked in the
Oliari sentence," said Council of Europe Secretary General
Thorbjorn Jagland.
That July 2015 ruling regarded the case of three
gay couples who said their inability under Italian law to
establish a legal union was a violation of the right to family
life.
"The next step will be a law that allows adoption, in order
to eliminate this remaining discrimination and fully align
Italian laws with jurisprudence of the European Court of Human
Rights," said Nils Muiznieks, Council of Europe Commissioner for
Human Rights.
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