The cabinet on Thursday gave its green light to a draft bill which will cut 29,095 laws from the books in an attempt to simplify Italy's legal system.
The laws all date back from before Italy's Constitution went into effect on January 1, 1948 and many were passed during the 1922-43 Fascist era.
The bill was presented by the minister for simplification, Roberto Calderoli, who later appeared before the press brandishing a massive dossier made up of five reams of paper, some 2,500 pages, printed on both sides with just the titles of the laws he proposed to abolish listed.
''If I had brought you the printed texts of all the laws there wouldn't be enough space in this room for anything else,'' the minister quipped to reporters.
In explaining his initiative, Calderoli said that ''there are laws here which are from the Fascist era and which we all thought had been abrogated long ago but are, in reality, still on the books''.
These included one creating the Fascist corporations, which were civic assemblies made up of party members representing economic, industrial, agrarian, social, cultural, and/or professional interest and which exerted control over social and economic life.
Other laws set to be axed included those dealing with fighting locusts, the loss of documents during flight, ham in a can and protecting citrus fruits from lady bugs.
