Theories of Law and Constitution in Fascist Italy

Abstract

The advent of the Fascist regime repeals the constitutional modernizations of the years 1918-1922, including the expansion of voting and freedom rights and the growing role of political parties and trade unions. A Fascist oriented cultural policy manages to impose a “Fascist constitutional law” thanks, in part, to the collaboration of jurists who bend to the regime’s authoritarian and totalitarian vocation as well as to its corporative inclination. However, there remains a large group of jurists, from Santi Romano to Oreste Ranelletti, who cultivate a more traditional reading of the innovations introduced by the regime and who do not shy away from emphasizing the elements of continuity with the Italian Nineteenth-century constitutional monarchy. Finally, starting from the early Thirties, a new generation of jurists comprising Costantino Mortati, Carlo Esposito and Vezio Crisafulli begin to develop a more comprehensive study of the Fascist legal innovations, focusing on the relationships between politics and law and laying some theoretical foundations also relevant for the forthcoming Italian constitutional State of 1948.