Insegnamento a.a. 2021-2022

The main topics of the course are:

• The origins of constitutional justice.
• The models of constitutional justice.
• Atypical functions of constitutional courts.
• The Italian Constitutional Court. Origins, sources and organization.
• The incidental method of judicial review and the direct method of judicial review.
• Conflicts of attribution.
• Judicial deference in times of emergency.
• The admissibility of referenda.
• The charges against the President of the Republic.
• Forms and method of constitutional interpretation.
• Separate opinions in constitutional and supreme courts.
• The types and effects of constitutional courts’ decisions.
• The relationships of the Italian Constitutional Court with the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights.
• Global Constitutional Justice. Voices from the South: Brazil, India and South Africa.

• Classify models of constitutional justice that can be identified in the comparative scenario.
• Describe and understand how the Italian Constitutional Court works.
• Describe and understand how some selected foreign courts work.
• Explain the relationship and the interplay between domestic constitutional courts and supranational courts.
• Identify and understand the case law of supreme, constitutional and supranational courts on some selected topics.

• Critically analyse the case law of supreme, constitutional and supranational courts.
• Interpret the contemporary scenario through the lenses of constitutional law and comparative law.
• Elaborate solutions to legal issues arising from practical situations and evaluate their pros and cons.
• Carry out autonomous research on a given topic.
• Present a case-study before an audience.
• Engage in a discussion on a legal topic with both instructors and peers.

• Face-to-face lectures
• Online lectures
• Guest speaker's talks (in class or in distance)
• Company visits
• Case studies /Incidents (traditional, online)
• Group assignments
• Interactive class activities (role playing, business game, simulation, online forum, instant polls)

Along with face-to-face/online lectures, supported by the use of slides and interactive presentations, students are invited to attend guest speakers’ talks (in class or in distance), held by prominent experts (professors, judges etc.).

Students are also called to attend interactive class activities (class seminars) and case-studies.

Class seminars consist of interactive sessions in which students are asked to analyse and discuss legal issues arising from topics of current interest, in which constitutional, supreme or supranational courts play a role.

Case-studies are organized as follows. Before class, students are required to examine case-study materials (book chapters, courts’ decisions, papers, essays), made available through Blackboard. For each topic, a group of students will be chosen (in advance) as “rapporteurs”, and they will be asked to prepare an in-class presentation (by relying on given materials as well as on autonomous research) in a given time. After the presentation, a debate on the case-study is stimulated, in which all students are invited to actively take part.

Moreover, an external visit to the Constitutional Court is organized (provided that enough students are interested in taking part in the visit and that restrictions due to the Covid-19 emergency allow the visit to take place). During their visit to the Constitutional Court, students can attend a public hearing of the Court.

- Student presentations are marked out of 30 (each student will be assigned his/her own separate mark) and they make up 1/3 of the final mark of the exam. The abilities that are assessed at this stage are the following: correctly explaining legal notions and arguments; selecting topics and presenting them in a chosen logical order within a given time; public speaking; not exceeding the given time; interaction with the audience (instructors, teaching assistants, other students), showing also capability to provide an original and critical reading of the case and of the entailed legal issues.

- Students are asked to take a written online assignment. The assignment is marked out of 30 and it makes up 1/3 of the final mark of the exam. The text of the assignment is released in November and students have to complete it (at home) before the end of the course. In the assignment, students have to approach a practical case (with a limited number of words). The assignment aims at evaluating students’ ability to examine legal issues from a practical and critical perspective, apply correct and well-grounded legal arguments, and develop them coherently and following a strict logic. The use of appropriate technical language and the ability to synthesize one’s points and comply with the required word limit are important assessment criteria as well.

- One question at the oral exam (date and times are available through You@B). This theoretical question is marked out of 30 and makes up 1/3 of the final mark of the exam. The question addresses either theoretical aspects of the course or class seminars held during the first part of the course and is aimed at assessing whether learners have achieved the set goals in terms of knowledge, as regards the classification of models, the description of how the Italian Constitutional Court and other selected courts work and how their relationship with supranational courts evolved over time, the identification of judicial approaches and trends in case law. The ability to identify links and interrelations between topics and the use of appropriate language are taken into consideration as well.

The final mark is determined by the evaluation of the oral individual exam. For non-attending students, the whole interview is based on theoretical aspects of the course, in order to assess whether they have achieved the set goals in terms of knowledge, as regards the classification of models, the description of how the Italian Constitutional Court and other selected courts work and how their relationship with supranational courts evolved over time, the identification of judicial approaches and trends in case law.  The ability to identify links and interrelations between topics and the use of appropriate language are taken into consideration as well.

V. Barsotti, P.G. Carozza, M. Cartabia, A. Simoncini, Italian Constitutional Justice in Global Context, Oxford University Press, 2015 (more information will be available in the Syllabus).

V. Barsotti, P.G. Carozza, M. Cartabia, A. Simoncini (eds.), Dialogues on Italian Constitutional Justice. A Comparative Perspective, Routledge, 2021 (more information will be available in the Syllabus).

Papers and essays made available to students through Blackboard.

Cases are available on institutional websites of each constitutional, supreme or supranational court.

Slides and class notes.

V. Barsotti, P.G. Carozza, M. Cartabia, A. Simoncini, Italian Constitutional Justice in Global Context, Oxford University Press, 2015 (more information will be available in the Syllabus).

 V. Barsotti, P.G. Carozza, M. Cartabia, A. Simoncini (eds.), Dialogues on Italian Constitutional Justice. A Comparative Perspective, Routledge, 2021 (more information will be available in the Syllabus).