Italian Constitutional Justice in Global Context

Italian Constitutional Justice in Global Context is the first book ever published in English to provide an international examination of the Italian Constitutional Court (ItCC), offering a comprehensive analysis of its principal lines of jurisprudence, historical origins, organization, procedures, and its current engagement with transnational European law. The ItCC represents one of the strongest and most successful examples of constitutional judicial review, and is distinctive in its structure, institutional dimensions, and well-developed jurisprudence. Moreover, the ItCC has developed a distinctive voice among global constitutional actors in its adjudication of a broad range of topics from fundamental rights and liberties to the allocations of governmental power and regionalism. Nevertheless, in global constitutional dialog, the voice of the ItCC has been almost entirely absent due to a relative lack of both English translations of its decisions and of focused scholarly commentary in English.

This book describes the "Italian Style" in global constitutional adjudication, and aims to elevate Italian constitutional jurisprudence to an active participant role in global constitutional discourse. The authors have carefully structured the work to allow the ItCC's own voice to emerge. It presents broad syntheses of major areas of the Court's case law, provides excerpts from notable decisions in a narrative and analytical context, addresses the tension between the ItCC and the Court of Cassation, and positions the development, character, and importance of the ItCC's jurisprudence in the larger arc of global judicial dialog.

Vittoria Barsotti is Professor of Comparative Law and Director of the PhD Program in Legal Sciences at the University of Florence. She has written books and articles on comparative law, constitutional law, and human rights.

Paolo G. Carozza is Professor of Law and Director of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and former President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. He has written books and articles on international human rights law, European and Latin American legal traditions, and comparative constitutional law.

Marta Cartabia currently serves as a Justice on the Italian Constitutional Court. She was previously Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Milan-Bicocca. She is a prolific and eminent constitutional law scholar in the field of individual rights and constitutional justice in the Italian, European, and comparative context.

Andrea Simoncini is Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Florence where he is Director of the International Studies Program in the Legal Science Department. He has written extensively on constitutional law and federal-regional law in the Italian, European, and comparative context.