Ateneo - UPO

The course will focus on the following five areas: I. Form of State and form of government: institutional design of the Italian state and its historical background II. Elements of the democratic dialogue within the EU governance III. Italian sources of law (I) VI. International and European law within the Italian legal order (II) V. Judicial review and court’s dialogue in Italy among national courts, Constitutional court and CJEU

One textbook at the choice of the students: M. Dogliani - I. Massa Pinto, Elementi di diritto costituzionale, Giappichelli, 2015 or G. Zagrebelsky - V. Marcenò - F. Pallante, Lineamenti di diritto costituzionale, Milano, ult. ed. or G.U. Rescigno, Corso di Diritto Pubblico, Bologna, Zanichelli, ult. ed. or R. Bin- G. Pitruzzella, Diritto pubblico, Torino, Giappichelli, ult. ed. The students have to provide with a body of public Italian legislation.

The course is proposed to confer to the students an institutional knowledge of the Italian public right, mainly to the aim to comprise and to correctly apply the sources of law, to critically know and to observe the structure and dynamics of the State and to learn the fundamental features of the system of the rights and the freedoms as so as of the jurisdictional ordering.

Fundamental knowledge of Italian history

Lectures

None

Oral exam that involves the verification of the level of knowledge and understanding of the contents of the course program, learning ability and communication skills.

1. Constitutionalism: ancient and modern. 2. The birth of the Nation State in the Modern Age. The constituent elements of the State: territory, population, sovereignty. The constitutional Revolutions of the XVIII Century. 3. The evolution of the forms of the State. 4. Fundamental rights: legal features and transformations in western constitutionalism. 5. The legal order: norms and sources of law. The hierarchical system of the sources of law. 6. Criteria for the solution of antinomies. 7. The Constitution as superior paramount law in the western Constitutionalism. The rigidity of the Constitution. 8. The Constitutional review of the legislation.. B) Representative democracy and Parliamentary form of government 9. Patterns of democracy: direct and representative democracy. 10. Political representation and electoral systems. 11. The Forms of Government in comparative perspectives: parliamentary government. 12. The Forms of Government in comparative perspectives: Presidential and semi-Presidential Government. C) European Union 13. The European Constitutions in the Post-Second World War and the openness to International law. Principles and sources of the international law and international organizations. 14. Origins and developments of the European Communities and the European Union. 15. The Treaties of the European Union and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of EU. 16. The Institutional frame of the European Union. 17. The sources of law of the European Union and their relevance in the domestic legal orders. 18. The principle of subsidiarity. 19. The European Court of Justice. 20. The European Convention of Human Rights: its relevance in the States legal orders and the protection of human rights by the European Court of Strasbourg. D) Italian Constitution: sources of law and the system of constitutional review of the legislation 21. From the Italian Statute of 1848 to the Constitutional Assembly. Limits and procedures for the amendment of the Constitution (art. 138-139 I.C.). 22. The Parliamentary Law (art. 70-74 I.C.). 23. The Acts of the Executive Branch with force of law (art.76-77 I.C.). 24. The reservation to the Statutory Law. The Regulations of the Executive Branch. 25. The system of separation of competences between the sources of law: the Regional Law (art. 117 I.C.). 26. The popular Referendum on Legislative Acts (art. 75 I.C.). 27. The Italian Constitutional Court: the constitutional review of the legislation (art. 134-137 I.C.). 28. The Italian Constitutional Court: other functions. E) Italian form of government 29. The structure of the Parliament (art. 55-69, 82 I.C.). 30. The status of the members of the Parliament (art. 68 I.C.). 31. The Parliamentary Confidence and the formation of the Cabinet (art. 92-94 I.C.). 32. The President of the Republic (art. 83-91 I.C.). 33. Structure of the Executive Branch and the Public Administration. (art. 95-100 I.C.). 34. Regional Form of Government (art. 121-126 I.C.). Local Government (art. 114-133 I.C.). 35. Constitutional Principles of the State Budget (art. 81 I.C.). 36. Politics and Jurisdiction: the independence of the judicial branch (art. 101-110 I.C.).

To acquire a general knowledge of Italian Public Law