The Constitutional Court
The Italian constitutional Court
Preface
This brief publication originates from the need to “dispel the mystery”
and “bring closer” to the citizens a fundamental institution
of the system of protections established in the Italian
Constitution, as explained by President Cesare Ruperto in his
Presentation to the first edition, released in 2002.
The publication of a communications tool that allows the
Constitutional Court to make itself known also to a non-legal audience
and to the general public was a fruitful idea. This slim booklet, written
by Valerio Onida and over time enriched with contributions by several
others, has been the fertile seed of a tree that, in the meantime, has grown
and borne ever more fruit.
Several years have passed since the first edition and the Constitutional
Court’s public communication efforts have evolved greatly, also thanks to
the potential offered by new technologies. The attention paid by the
media to the Court’s work has become more assiduous and incisive, the
sign that there is widespread knowledge of the impact of the institution’s
decisions in social and individual lives.
In recent years, the Court has opened its Palazzo, receiving ever more
numerous groups of students and citizens of all ages, to sit in public hearings,
to meet the judges, or even simply to visit the seat of constitutional
justice. However, most importantly, the Court has left the building, to
know and to let itself be known directly by citizens, undertaking a “viaggio
in Italia” (“Voyage through Italy”) for some years now and that is
widely documented on the Court’s Internet website.
All these developments have not made any less current the original
need to reach all citizens, and especially the younger generations, with
material that is comprehensible and easy-to-read, but that at the same
time can provide a faithful and exhaustive image of the Constitutional
Court and its multiple activities. The experience gained over these years
shows that narrating the work of the Constitutional Court also furthers
knowledge of the Constitution itself and of the values it lays at the foundation
of civil co-habitation. The meaning of the Constitution is spread,
and awareness of it is revived. This task, which is a collective task that
engages the entire Republic – citizens, social groups and all institutions
– cannot avoid calling upon, first and foremost, the Constitutional Court,
because constitutional values are not simply transmitted inertly from one
generation to the next, but, rather, live and die in the living history of the
society that appropriates itself of them continuously, day after day.