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The Constitution of the Italian Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Mario Einaudi
Mario Einaudi
Affiliation:
Cornell University
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Extract

At the beginning of 1948, Italy's first republican constitution went into effect. After exactly a century, the Statuto of 1848 was finally and formally superseded. History will record that the Statuto proved a powerful instrument in the formation of Italian unity and in the development of Italy's freedoms and parliamentary system until 1922, just as it will also be a witness to its rejection and nullification in the course of the subsequent twenty-five years. The new republican constitution represents the first deliberate effort by the Italian people as a whole to guarantee their freedom and common welfare within a constitutional framework.

The influences of many lands are visible in the document. One can see in the rebirth of regionalism the native historical tradition of municipal freedom; the French fear of Caesarism reflected in election of the president by Parliament rather than by the people; British reliance on a balance of power between executive and legislature translated into the almost unlimited executive power of dissolution of the chambers; the time-honored American principle of bicameralism accepted with the creation of two legislative houses of equal power; and the equally famous American doctrine of judicial review tentatively imitated through the establishment of a Constitutional Court. Of Eastern constitutionalism there are only scant traces, the new social and economic rights reflecting rather the general trends of the times than any overt allegiance to the tenets of the Soviet constitution. Indeed, the acceptance of the new has been tempered by a strong restatement of what is valid in the individualistic and liberal traditions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , August 1948 , pp. 661 - 676
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1948

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References

1 Piccioni, Assemblea Costituente, Debates, Sept. 17, 1947, p. 266.Google Scholar

2 Mortati, A. C., Debates, Sept. 18, 1947, p. 307.Google Scholar

3 Tosato, A. C., Debates, Sept. 19, 1947, p. 343 Google Scholar: “The Soviet constitutional commission of 1936 debated whether or not a bicameral system should be adopted and whether or not the Soviet of the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities should be placed on a footing of equality. Stalin opposed the current which denied equality, by pointing out that by giving unequal powers to the two houses conflicts between them would not be eliminated but increased, and that what eliminates legislative conflicts is parity and an equal democratic basis.”

4 See the Communist motion to this effect, A. C., , Debates, Sept. 18, 1947, pp. 294–5.Google Scholar

5 Mortati, A. C., Debates, Sept. 18, 1947, p. 305.Google Scholar The main Christian Democratic motion on the issue of interest representation was, in part, as follows: “The Constituent Assembly—considering that a second Chamber, in addition to one elected by universal suffrage, is required for the integration of political representation, so as to reflect social reality in all its politically significant interests and to guarantee to legislative work, which is of an ever-increasing technical character, the assistance of experts—resolves that these aims are to be reached by securing the participation in the second Chamber of the groups in which social activities spontaneously divide themselves.” A. C., , Debates, Sept. 17, 1947, p. 265.Google Scholar The decisive vote on this motion took place on September 23, when it was rejected by 213 to 166, with practically only the Christian Democrats voting in favor of it.

6 For the election of the first president, however, only members of Parliament were present, since there had been no time to choose the regional representatives. This was in accordance with Art. 2 of the transitional arrangements of the constitution.

7 Ruini, A. C., Debates, Oct. 23, 1947, p. 1467.Google Scholar

8 A. C., , Debates, Oct. 22, 1947, pp. 1444, 1446.Google Scholar

9 Dominedò, A. C., Debates, Oct. 22, 1947, p. 1455.Google Scholar

10 Nobile, A. C., Debates, Oct. 24, 1947, p. 1541.Google Scholar

11 A. C., , Debates, Jan. 31, 1948, pp. 4329 ff.Google Scholar

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