Islam, the Council declares the anti-mosque law of Lombardy unconstitutional

The law "anti-Mosques"of the Lombardy Region is unconstitutional. This is established by a judgment of the Consulta, according to which the religious freedom guaranteed by Article 19 of the Constitution also includes the freedom of worship and, with it, the right to dispose of adequate spaces to be able to actually exercise it. For this reason, the judges motivate, the legislator must take into account the need to respond to this need and cannot in any case hinder the establishment of religious facilities.

Therefore, two provisions regarding the location of places of worship introduced in the Lombard urban planning discipline (l. 12/2005) by the Lombardy regional law n. 2 of 2015. "The censored norms – write the supreme judges – determined a strong compression of religious freedom without any real interest in the good governance of the territory". The Court referred to absolute character of the norm, which concerned without distinction all the new religious equipment regardless of theirs urban impact, and to the differentiated regime unreasonably reserved only for religious equipment and not to other secondary urbanization works. On the basis of the second provision declared unconstitutional (article 72, fifth paragraph, second sentence), the Court continues, the Par could be adopted only together with the plan of government of the territory (Pgt). According to the Court, this necessary contextuality and the completely discretionary nature of the power of the Municipality to proceed with the formation of the Pgt made the possibility of creating new places of worship absolutely uncertain and unpredictable.