From Constitutional Body to Policy Arena: Politics, Inescapable Companion of the Italian Judicial Council

Abstract: The new architecture of the Italian Republic, set up in 1948, foresaw the creation of a High Judicial Council, entrusted with full competences in recruiting, promoting, assessing, and training judges and prosecutors. The new body began what has been called a long process of institutionalisation, which ended around the end of the 1970s. Such a process expanded its capacities to steer and govern the whole court system. Whereas it is fairly common to see scholarly works addressing the conflict that exists in Italy between the judiciary and the executive branch, the organisational behaviour of the Council has been much less analysed. This article considers this aspect in detail and points to the development of the Council from a constitutional body – ensuring the independence of members of the judiciary – to a policy arena, in which practices of governance, competence and know how, ways of solving problems and conflicts have been developed over the years.