Lawyers and Statist Liberalism in Italy

The Italian legal complex seems to be characterised by a rather high level of fragmentation, exemplifying the traditional state of ‘balkanisation’ of legal professions in the civil law tradition: lawyers, judges and law professors form different groups, exhibiting an increasingly distinct cultural and political outlook. The last decades have confirmed the important role played by the legal complex in Italian politics and society, although with a slow but steady decline of the influence played by the academic doctrine, and a corresponding ascent of the role of the judiciary. Italian legal liberalism shows a basic ambiguity, due to the traditional importance given to the role of the State, sometimes at the expense of the protection of individual rights. Today, this ambiguity is fuelled by the strong role entrusted to public prosecution in the fight against organised crime and political and business corruption: a policy that can claim some significant success but whose implementation seems to be pursued also at the expense of the dispute-resolution function of the judicial process.