La Costituzione liberata

The Constitution Delivered

Abstract disponibile solo in lingua inglese

The author intervenes in the debate in course in Italy as to the need for – and possible content of – constitutional reform, stating that what citizens actually want is the restoration of the certainty of justice, the reorganisation of public accounts and an improvement in the quality of services. Such objectives are unattainable and non credible without a review of political behaviour. The excessive power wielded by the political parties has, alas, created a sort of vicious circle: more precisely, tha state cannot be reformed unless the "state of the parties" is reformed first. Besides introducing a uninominal voting system and strengthening the powers of the executive, the revision of the Constitution should also seek to develop new rights of freedom with regard not only to the natural but also the human environment. The point is not to throw the Constitution out of the window but to prune it: to blow away the cobwebs and unravel the twisted branches, and to graft on new rights of freedom and new instruments of democracy.