A/HRC/4/19/Add.4 page 11 17. Religious denominations other than the Catholic Church have the right to organize themselves according to their own statutes. Their relationship with the State is regulated through bilateral agreements, known as intese, between the Italian State and the Italian representatives of each denomination, (article 8.3 of the Italian Constitution). At present, a draft law on religious liberty and on the bilateral agreements is being revised and will be submitted for approval to Parliament. 18. So far, bilateral agreements have been entered into with the Churches represented by the Waldesian Table, the Assemblies of God in Italy, the Union of the Christian Seventh-Day Adventist Churches, the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities, the Italian Christian Evangelical Baptist Union and the Lutheran Evangelical Church in Italy. The intese with the Jehovah’s Witnesses and with the Italian Buddhist Union have been signed but not yet ratified. 19. Four Islamic organizations have applied for intese though none has been approved so far.11 In the views of various governmental interlocutors, the lack of a centralized authority and a unitary approach by the different Islamic denominational organizations has prevented the conclusion of an intese. Nevertheless, as expressed by the Italian authorities, “it is possible for the Government to start the procedure for the conclusion of different intese with Islamic denominational organizations, whereby each of them would be representing its associates-believers”. D. Immigration 20. The immigration law in force, the so-called Bossi-Fini Law,12 besides promoting immigration from non-EU countries linked to employment, aims at curbing illegal entries with a 11 The Islamic Cultural Centre of Italy applied in 1991 for an intese, which has not been granted because its particular organizational structure is composed of diplomatic representatives of the Islamic countries. The Italian Islamic religious community (CO.RE.IS), comprised of Muslim Italian citizens, applied in 1998 for a bilateral agreement and recognition as a juridical person. In 2001 the draft decree was submitted to the Council of State, which returned a positive assessment. The draft decree is at the Ministry of the Interior to be further improved in some formal aspects. The Union of the Islamic Communities and Organizations in Italy, UCOII, is comprised of some 30 Islamic centres. It submitted an application in 1992 without requesting recognition as a juridical person. Negotiations have not begun. The Association of Italian Muslims (AMI) founded in 1982 in Rome applied for an intese in 1997 but also did not request recognition as a juridical person. 12 The Bossi-Fini Law (Law No. 189/2002) entered into force in September 2002 and its implementing legislation, Presidential Decree 303 adopted in 2004, entered into force on 21 April 2005. The Bossi-Fini Law amended the Testo Unico, the Consolidated Act of measures governing immigration and norms on the condition of foreign citizens (Law No. 191/1998 and Law Decree No. 286/1998), which had incorporated article 1 of Law No. 39/1990 (the Martelli Law) and the Turco-Napolitano Law (Law No. 40/1998), which had replaced the previous Law No. 943/1986 and all articles but article 1 of the Martelli Law.