Rome, June 20 (LaPresse) – With ordinance no. 2254/2025, published on June 20, the Third Section of the Council of State ruled on the precautionary appeal filed by Engineer Angelo Sticchi Damiani, who contested the decree of February 21, 2025, by which the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, applying Article 65, paragraph 1, last sentence, of the Statute of the Automobile Club of Italy – A.C.I., had declared him removed from his position as President of the said body, and simultaneously appointed General Tullio Del Sette as Extraordinary Commissioner.
Unlike the Lazio Regional Administrative Court (TAR), which had found the former ACI President’s appeal to be prima facie unfounded, the Council of State did not rule on the legitimacy of the decree but decided not to suspend the contested commissioner appointment.
The appellate judge acknowledged Engineer Sticchi Damiani’s interest in fulfilling his presidential functions until the end of his term. However, in weighing the conflicting interests of the parties, it considered the interest of the institution in continuing management under the already-installed Commissioner to be prevailing over the private interest, in order to ensure continuity in administrative action and maintain the organizational structure created through the decision to appoint a commissioner.
All substantive issues concerning the legitimacy of the decision to appoint a commissioner remain open.
“In the merits phase of the case,” a press release states, “it will have to be decided whether the removal of a President elected in October 2024 by over 90% of the Assembly’s votes was lawful, in a context where a 1978 rule prohibiting a third term for public entities had long been considered inapplicable to ACI due to the elective nature of the role and the existence of a subsequent 1999 law allowing a fourth presidential term for Sports Federations, such as ACI, provided a strengthened quorum was met — which Sticchi Damiani widely exceeded. In the past, between the 1980s and 1990s, another president was elected five times. In Sticchi Damiani’s case, however, the Council of Ministers for the first time deemed the 1978 law applicable. Due to such contradictory interpretations, the Council of State decided to leave the substantive issue entirely open, which the Lazio TAR will address in the coming months.”
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