‘Counts’ in the Italian ‘nomad camps’: an incautious ethnic census of Roma

Abstract

While in France the possibility of collecting ethnic data led to long-lasting debates, in Italy the government enacted an emergency decree to carry out a census of so-called ‘nomad camps’ populated mainly by Roma. Starting from this case, this article examines the question of ethnic data collection in Italy. The contribution highlights that in Italy legislative provisions have established a ‘promotional framework’ for minorities. In contrast with France and its official colour-blindness, the Italian approach also allows for ethnic data collection whenever this is needed for policies in favour of minorities. However, the recent emergency measures applied to the ‘nomad camps’ in Italy, including a census, were not framed in the context of such positive measures and are thus not easily compatible with anti-discrimination and privacy law. Hence, the Nomad Emergency Decree opened the way for Italy's first experiences of civil rights litigation based on the ‘discrimination frame’.

Keywords:

• Ethnic census
• Italy
• Roma
• discrimination
• categorization
• strategic litigation

Notes

1. In the remainder of the article I will not distinguish between ethnic and linguistic minorities, even though it is certainly possible to claim that some ethnic minorities are not also linguistic minorities and the other way around. The reason why I do not introduce a distinction is that this would be redundant in the cases at hand, since I am not specifically focusing on linguistic rights or cultural rights related to the ‘ethnicity of a population’ but on civil and social rights which ethnic and linguistic minorities enjoy in the same way.

2. Cf. Art. 1 of the ‘De Gasperi-Gruber Agreement’ of 1946 and Art. 61 and 89 of Constitutional Law n. 1/1972.

3. Leg. Decree n. 215/2003, Art. 7, 2 c.

4. In these terms the French National institute for Demographic Studies presented the data collection practices to be used for the survey named Trajectories et Origines (TEO), which was the concrete measure affected by the above-mentioned decision of the Conseil Constitutionnel.

5. This was confirmed in two interviews with the author (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali, Rome, 1 February 2008, and UNAR, Rome, 1 February 2008).

6. Bills proposed under the XV and XVI legislatures: n. 804 of 13 July 2001, 1009 of 10 January 2002, 52 of 28 April 2006, 266 of 5 May 2006, 2858 of 3 July 2007, 1354 of 20 June 2008.