Constitution of Italy

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Promulgation of the Constitution

The Constitution of Italy (Italian: Costituzione della Repubblica Italiana) is the supreme law of Italy. It was approved by the Constituent Assembly (Assemblea Costituente) on 22 December, 1947 453 to 62, with 3 canceled. The Constituent Assembly was elected with the universal suffrage on 2 June, 1946 at the same time as the referendum on aboltion of the monarchy. The constitution came into force on January 1, 1948, one century after the Statuto Albertino, or previous constitution, came into force.

Introduction

We can group the forces that enliven the debate inside the assembly into three main trends: the christian democratic solidaristic one, the socialist-communist and the liberal (promoter of civil liberties, heir of the liberal tendencies of the nineteenth century). All of those tendencies agreed about refusing any authoritaristic choice, because they were deeply anti-fascist. Each party belonging to those trends worried about his future in the first election that there would have been after the promulgation of the Constitution and tried to insert in the constitutional act some regulations reflecting the opinions of the tendence they belonged to: the result was that, for example, some parts of the text refer much more to the christian-democratic believes (like parts concerning marriage and family), some others, for further example, remind communist and socialist topics (like parts concerning workers rights).

Like many constitutions, only a few regulations are considered to be self-executing. The vast majority of the constitution requires enabling legislation, referred to as "accomplishment of constitution". This process has taken decades and some contend that because of various political pressures, it is still not finished.

We can define Italian Constitution from differents points of view; Above all, regulations written in this text try to involve all problems of private and public life: from individual liberties to marriage, from work to governement, and so on.

This act is written. The constitutional assembly, according to the continental law experiences, chose not to leave to customary law the control of public organs, like some countries do, especially in common law.

It's also extremely hard to modify the constitution: to take this act the parliament needs a large majority, and, in some cases, a further public referendum. On the other side, normal legislative acts taken by the parliament that are in contrast with the constitution are removed by the Constitutional Court, after which it's like they never existed.

It is divided into three main parts, Fundamental Principles (Italian: Principii Fondamentali), Part I: Rights and Duties of Citizens (Italian: Diritti e Doveri dei Cittadini), Part II: Organization of the Republic (Italian: Ordinamento della Repubblica) and Part III: Transitory and Final Provisions (Italian: Disposizioni transitorie e finali).

Constitution of Italy

Introduction

Further reading

See also