Towards openness and transperancy: recent developments in the "Italian-style" Constitutional justice

A new wind blows at Palazzo della Consulta. The reason is not only the election, for the first time in the history of the Italian Constitutional Court, of a woman, Professor Marta Cartabia, to the Court’s Presidency, a development that, for a moment, has put this institution, often neglected by media and public alike, in the spotlight. The press release of 11 January 2020, under the momentous title “The Court opens up to hearing the voice of civil society”, announced that substantial changes were introduced by the Court in its collegiality to the rules governing its proceedings. This is an unprecedented innovation in its sixty-four years of activity and one that is likely to reverberate on the Court's relationship with society and, not least, on the attitude of citizens towards public authorities. To better understand this ground-breaking development , we should begin by considering that the “Italian-style” constitutional justice has been recently labelled as “cooperative” and “relational” by a successful book aimed at presenting at an international audience the activity and accomplishment of the more than 60 years’ experience of the Italian Constitutional Court.