Archives in Classical Athens: Some Observations

Commentando i contributi raccolti nella sezione sull'Atene classica del volume, si propongono alcune osservazioni e note critiche sul rapporto tra documenti d'archivio, documenti su materiale deperibile e testi epigrafici, sul significato del termine "archeion" e l'organizzazione degli archivi nell'Atene classica, sulla distinzione tra documenti d'uso corrente e documenti destinati alla conservazione a titolo permanente nonch\ue9, a fini di esemplificazione, sul ruolo e la natura delle registrazioni scritte per l'amministrazione delle opere pubbliche e, in ambito giuridico, nell'iter dell'istruttoria e della fase dibattimentale di un processo

Regulating Religion in Italy. Constitution does (not) matter

This article focuses on state-church relations and on the peculiar implementation of the \u201cidea of secularism\u201d in Italy. First, it explores the formal provisions of the 1848 Constitution. Next, it investigates constitutional provisions that came into force in 1948. Finally, it examines how the actors of the living constitution (legislators, the government, judges, and the Constitutional Court in particular) tried to balance and develop the potentially conflicting principles included in the 1948 Constitution in the area of religious freedom, equality, and state-church relations. The article explores three particularly controversial examples: the teaching of religion in state schools; the display of the crucifix in classrooms; and state funding mechanisms of religious denominations. The main claim of the article is that, with regard to the regulation of religion in Italy, the transformation of the constitutional position of religion did not occur within the formal constitution, but in the \u201cliving constitution"

Tra oralità e scrittura: diritto e forme della comunicazione dai poemi omerici a Teofrasto

This essay examines the ways the introduction of writing affected legal process in Greek society from the end of the 8th century B.C. onwards. Part 1 focuses on the transition from oral to written law, starting from the assumption that they coexisted and interacted for a long time. By comparative analysis of Homeric «rules», Draco’ s and Solon’s laws and some sections of the Gortyn code, it shows that the use of the new «technology» of writing resulted in significant changes both in procedure and substance, and, at least in some cases, in an effort towards «codification». Part 2 deals with judicial procedures at Athens in the 4th century B.C. It is argued that these were complex and entailed a three-stage process. Contrary to what is generally assumed, the written documents drawn by the magistrate or prepared by the litigants during the first two stages – the preliminary hearing and the anakrisis – heavily conditioned the third, «rhetoric» phase that took place in front of the judges in court

L'evoluzione del quadro normativo dell Citt\ue0 metropolitana nell'ordinamento italiano

1Il contributo traccia un'analisi del quadro normativo nel quadro di uno studio di fattibilità dell'istituzione della città metropolitana di Trieste nella Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia.openopenFaraguna PietroFaraguna, Pietr

\u201cConstitutional Paternalism\u201d and the Inability to Legislate

On 25 September 2019, the Italian Constitutional Court (ICC) has made clear that assisted suicide is not punishable under specific conditions. The judgment came one year after the ICC had ordered the Italian Parliament to legislate on the matter \u2013 which it did not do. The entire story is indicative of the inability of Parliaments to respond to social demands as well as the current trend of high courts to act as shepherds of parliaments rather than as guardians of the constitution

Taking Constitutional Identities Away from the Courts

In federal states, constitutional identity is the glue that holds together the Union. On the contrary, in the European Union—not a fully-fledged federation yet—each Member state has its own constitutional identity. On the one hand, the Union may benefit from the particular knowledge, innovation, history, diversity, and culture of its individual states. On the other hand, identity-related claims may have a disintegrating effect. Constitutional diversity needs to come to terms with risks of disintegration. The Treaty on the European Union seeks a balance, providing the obligation to respect the constitutional identities of its Member states. Drawing from the European experience, this article compares judicial and nonjudicial means of accommodation of divergent constitutional values. In the category of nonjudicial means, political negotiated exemptions and opt-outs in favor of certain Member states have been considered. In the category of judicial means of accommodation, this article analyzes how the Courts approach the concept of constitutional identity. This article finds that nonjudicial means of accommodation of identity-related conflicts are a crucial complement to judicial ones and—under certain circumstances—a superior alternativ