I soggetti e l’oggetto del patto costituzionale: l’esperienza italiana

The aim of this article is to analyse the nature and characters of the pact at the foundation of the Italian Republic. In the first part the author describes his thesis. By contrasting the idea that the two main contestants at the Constituent Assembly were the Christian Democrats and the Socialist-Communist parties, the author argues that the Italian Constitution is instead the creation of a wide compromise among three political “cultures”: the catholic, the communist, and the liberal. Indeed, the most important decision made before the election of the Constituent Assembly was the delegation to the Government, with some exception, of the power to legislate. The separation between the political-constitutional discussion and the political-governmental field allowed the three cultures at the Constituent Assembly to keep the dialogue alive even when the same parties began to mark their irreconcilable differences on the government of the Italian Country. In the second part of the article the author analyses the subject and the guarantees of the constitutional pact, highlighting briefly the elements of its originality and weakness as they have emerged during the seventy years of the constitutional experience. Conclusively, the author touches upon the recent problems of the Italian constitutional pact and the current difficulties striking the Italian democratic institutions.