Valzer di poltrone in consiglio comunale a Gela a suon di sentenze giudiziarie

The Court of Appeal of Caltanissetta has put an end to the dispute that was shaking the balance of the City Council of Gela after the elections of June 2024. Grazia Cosentino (the mayoral candidate defeated in the second round) has definitively lost her position as a city councilor, and the seat she left vacant goes to Paolo Cafà, the first non-elected candidate from the list PeR – Progressives and Renewers associated with the mayoral candidate Miguel Donegani.

The decision, filed on March 3 but made known by Cafà himself, completely rejects the two appeals presented by Cosentino and Nadia Gnoffo, the first non-elected member of the city council, confirming the first-instance ruling of the Court of Gela from April 2025. The Court found the reconstruction by the Court to be valid: Cosentino, an engineer and employee of the company Impianti Srr ATO 4 Caltanissetta Provincia Sud, held a position with "significant coordination and management powers" in the waste collection and disposal service also provided for the Municipality of Gela. According to the judges, her professional activity placed her in a condition of permanent conflict of interest with her council functions.

The ruling emphasizes that Cosentino, as Rup and service manager, "participates in a public service as a bearer of a specific interest opposed to that of the local authority." A passage of the reasoning is particularly explicit: "Employee Cosentino is called to collaborate in the drafting of the Pef and the Tari and, as a councilor, to evaluate, modify, or approve them. In the same act, she can have different and conflicting interests." The Court reiterates that this is not an occasional incompatibility that can be removed by abstention, but a structural incompatibility, as provided for by Article 10 of the L.R. 31/1986.

The second part of the ruling addresses the more political issue: the replacement of the seat left vacant by Cosentino, who entered the Council as the "best losing candidate for mayor". Nadia Gnoffo, first among the non-elected of the Forza Italia list associated with Cosentino, claimed the seat arguing that it should remain within the lists connected to the best losing candidate for mayor. However, the Court adopted the opposite thesis: with the prededuction no longer applicable, the seat falls back into the general distribution of minority lists, according to the d'Hondt method. The reasoning is clear: "The prededuction applies to all losing minority lists. In case of a vacancy, the seat is assigned to the list that has the highest unused quotient." That quotient is precisely that of the PeR – Progressisti e Rinnovatori list, with 2053 votes. Hence, the confirmation of Paolo Cafà's entry. The Court also condemned Cosentino and Gnoffo to pay the legal costs, quantified at 8,470 euros plus accessories, and to pay the additional unified contribution required for rejected appeals.

The case, complex and articulated, touches on two central themes for local government law: the definition of the boundaries of incompatibility between technical positions and elective functions, especially in public companies managing essential services; the interpretation of the prededuction of the seat to the "best loser", a peculiar figure of the Sicilian electoral system. The Court has chosen a strict line on conflicts of interest and an extensive reading of proportional distribution, destined to impact similar cases in municipalities with over 15,000 inhabitants.