Willemijn Lindeboom
La costituzione Italiana… the Italian Constitution. How do you think of writing a blog about such a terribly boring subject and also hope that Dutch and Flemish people who are interested in Italy will read it? Well… I'll give it a try and we'll see how it goes.
Why a blog about the Italian Constitution?
La costituzione Italiana is an acclaimed document. The famous Benigni (from among others Life is Beautiful) devoted an evening program to it years ago that has been followed by millions of people in Italy. This has brought more attention to the Constitution.
Just imagine what that means… the most famous comedian in Italy talks a full show about the constitution and how beautiful and important it is.
That is remarkable to say the least.
Subsequently, the government of Renzi is about a referendum with proposals to amend the Constitution. Due to the referendum, more Italians have once again started to study the constitution and since then it has been talked about a lot and has been the Constitution really into it.
The Italian Constitution was written immediately after the Second World War by a group of men from completely different walks of life. The Communists with the Liberals, the Catholics with the Socialists, and so on. These people started talking to each other and continued to do so until there was a document that everyone could agree on. It was laid down how Italy should function.
Italy came out of the Second World War, in which it Mussolini first sided with Germany and then changed direction. The internal struggle was, in addition to the external, also fierce. Hard but wise lessons have been learned from this and these were incorporated into the constitution at the time.
Parts of the Italian constitution have served as the basis for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which took shape not long after the creation of the Italian constitution.
La costituzione Italiana consists of 2 parts. The first part defines the fundamental principles and the second part deals with the division of the republic (i.e. government, parliament, head of state and so on).
Article
Some fundamental principles are interesting. For example, Italy is a republic based on work (Article 1 directly establishes this). In principle, according to the constitution there should be work for everyone and for years governments have done everything they can to make that happen.
Also, according to Article 1, sovereignty (ie 'making decisions without being accountable to others') rests with the people and the constitution indicates how the people can and may do this.
Article
Article 3 states that all citizens are equal and should be treated equally by the law, regardless of religion, color, gender and so on.
Then it says that the Republic must ensure that all citizens can fully develop and participate freely in politics and the economy, by removing possible obstacles to that participation.
That is beautifully written in Italian. After years of dictatorship and then war, this is a wonderful pursuit. A state that is committed to its citizens to ensure that everyone can fully develop and participate in social, political and economic life. Perhaps a utopia, but it is also Article 3 of the Italian Constitution.
Article
Article 4 further elaborates on the right to work, which in Article 1 was called the foundation of the Republic, but also instructs all citizens to contribute to the material and/or spiritual progress of the country.
So Italian residents have a duty to contribute minimally materially to progress, but optionally it can also be on a spiritual level.
Article
Article 9 states: The Republic promotes the development of culture and scientific and technical research. It protects the landscape and the historical and artistic heritage of Italy. In short, the 'costituenti' (the people who wrote the constitution) already thought it important at the time to pay attention to the environment and to all the beautiful cultural riches of Italy.
Article
Article 10 states that foreigners who do not have the same right to democracy in their own country as in Italy must be granted asylum (according to rules laid down in law).
Article
Article 11 states that Italy rejects war, including as a means of resolving international disputes. The word reject is beautiful, repudiate. It is often used to reject a person who was once in our life, often family member, but can also be a close friend.
The nice thing about it repudiate is that it recognizes that there was once a strong bond, but it is broken. Italy has fought wars, but the constitution says that it rejects them, that it wants nothing more to do with them.
Finally, Article 12 describes how the Italian flag should look like (fern green, bright white en flaming scarlet red divided into three vertical planes of equal size). That is remarkable to say the least, that the flag occupies such an important place.
Basso, one of the costitutionalism who was very important to Italy after the Second World War wrote: 'As long as work is not guaranteed for everyone, freedom is not guaranteed for everyone; as long as there is no social security there will be no real political democracy; either we do everything it says in this Constitution, or we will never have democracy in Italy.'
- You can view the original Italian constitution here.
- A Dutch translation of the Italian constitution can be found here.
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