A GJ Topics article.

Abstract

In Italy, there exists a complex relationship between the judiciary and political life. My thesis is that though the Italian judiciary may be viewed as the leading example of the expansion of judicial power in Europe, devoted since the nineteen-sixties to the project of the constitutionalization of Italian legal life and the expansion of a rights-based jurisprudence, in fact more recently the prosecutorial investigations trials, and role of public prosecutors in the society more generally, has not always been consistent with the expansion of those rights, and has sometimes threatened them. I focus here on the ways public prosecutors have expanded the role of the judiciary through an use of the criminal law and on the difficulties induced by the Italian way of expanding the judicial power through the penal law and the dangerous consequences which this form of politicization have wrought. This prosecutorial turn has, unfortunately, further delayed achieving a true culture of rights in Italy.

Originally published in Global Jurist Topics.

Recommended Citation

Ferrarese, Maria Rosaria (2001) "Penal Judiciary and Politics in Italy," Global Jurist Topics: Vol. 1 : Iss. 2, Article 3.
Available at: http://www.bepress.com/gj/topics/vol1/iss2/art3