“I think it’s a victory like the partisan struggle or the narrow victory in the referendum for the Republic [over] the monarchy [in 1946].” An enthused Giovanni Bachelet, a leader of the successful “No” campaign in Italy’s recent referendum on judicial reform, could be forgiven for hyping its significance. Where those past struggles laid the foundation of the modern Italian Constitution, this vote merely preserved the existing text.

Yet the comments by Bachelet, a longtime critic of right-wing tycoon Silvio Berlusconi’s assaults on the justice system, also pointed to a fundamental factor in this result. As shown in past referendums, most Italians dislike their government using short-lived electoral mandates to rewrite the Republic’s foundational text.

The result was hard to predict; polls even a couple months back had placed Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s “Yes” side in a strong lead. Her government proposed a separation of the careers of judges and prosecutors (thus stopping anyone fulfilling both roles) while also creating oversight bodies formed by sortition (random selection) rather than election.