THE GREEN PASS REMAINS – CONVERSION INTO LAW OF DECREE-LAW 19/2024

Here is the link to a new video dedicated to the conversion into law of Decree-Law 19/2024 and, in particular, to the notorious Art. 43:

https://youtu.be/9hxErrMePUQ

Decree-Law 19/2024 is yet another unconstitutional measure – Article 77 provides for recourse to decrees only in extraordinary cases of necessity and urgency – in which the government inserts a vast array of heterogeneous provisions, often drafted by cross-referencing other legislative measures in order to render the rules incomprehensible.

In the original text of the decree, under Art. 43, the government felt the pressing need, in view of potential health emergencies and to facilitate – out of the goodness of its heart – the issuance and verification of health certificates, to make indefinite use of the national digital green certificate platform, in the macaronic English so dear to the national legislator; that is, to extend the notorious green pass in perpetuity, delegating to one or more decrees of the Minister of Health the identification of the new certificates that will be indispensable for future pandemics. All this at the non-negligible cost of €3,850,000 for 2024 and €1,850,000 per year from 2025 onwards. The funding for this unavoidable measure was to be drawn from the fund allocated to compensate victims of vaccination.

Having realised the immense discontent this measure caused, the government decided to take damage-control measures by entrusting the Minister of “Health”, Prof. Schillaci, with a series of bombastic statements duly conveyed by the press, in which he announced an amendment that would modify this provision and assured citizens that the government had no intention whatsoever of signing up to the global green pass.

On 30 April, Law no. 56/2024 converting the decree-law was published in the Official Gazette. The new Article 43 performed the Gattopardian legislative miracle of changing everything so that nothing changes. Indeed, having removed the references to the notorious green pass and to Decree-Law 52/2021, the government used a new, cryptic wording: “by decree of the Minister of Health, in agreement with the Minister of Economy and Finance, to be adopted, having consulted the Data Protection Authority, within ninety days of the date of entry into force of the law converting this decree, the appropriate technological methods shall be identified to ensure the issuance and verification of digital health certificates, in compliance with European and international technical specifications.”

The green pass, kicked out through the front door by Minister Schillaci’s interviews, slips back in through the window under the guise of compliance with European and international technical specifications. That this is precisely the same thing envisaged by the previous wording is clear from the second paragraph. In fact, digital health certificates will cost exactly what the sine die extension of the green pass was set to cost, namely €3,850,000 for 2024 and €1,850,000 per year from 2025 onwards.

They did not have the stomach, at least, to confirm the use of the fund for vaccine-injured individuals. The money to finance these useless digital health certificates will come from lapsed liabilities, that is, state budget debt entries that are no longer claimable and therefore to be transferred to assets.

The text of the old and new Art. 43 of Decree-Law 19/2024 can be consulted here.

Here is the link to the article on the website dedicated to the conversion law.