Law of Italy
The law of Italy is the system of law across the Italian Republic. The Italian legal system has a plurality of sources of production. These are arranged in a hierarchical scale, under which the rule of a lower source cannot conflict with the rule of an upper source.
The Constitution of 1948 is the main source. The Italian civil code is based on codified Roman law with elements of the Napoleonic civil code and later statutes. The civil code of 1942 replaced the original one of 1865. The penal code was also written under fascism.
Both the civil code and the penal code have been modified in order to be in conformity with the current democratic constitution and with social changes.
Legislative power
Article 117 of the Constitution of Italy shares legislative power, according to the concerned matters, between Italian Parliament and regional councils. While a law ratified by the national Parliament is simply called legge and is enforced on the whole country, laws ratified by regional councils are named leggi regionali and can be applied only in the concerned region. Parliament is competent to legislate for the matters expressly indicated in the second paragraph of Article 117, while the Regions are competent to legislate for the remaining matters.There is also a second list of matters contained in the third paragraph of article 117 called matters of concurrent legislation, in which the Regions have legislative power, except for the determination of fundamental principles, reserved to the State.
The Government can also issue an act having the force of law, but this must be confirmed later by Parliament, under penalty of forfeiture of the law decree. Furthermore, the Parliament can delegate the Government to legislate on a certain subject, but at the same time establishes the margins within which the Government can move in legislating. The normative act issued in this way by the Government takes the name of decreto legislativo, "legislative decree". The power of legislative initiative is attributed to each parliamentarian, to the people, through the institution of the popular law proposal, carried out by collecting at least 50,000 signatures, and to the Council of Ministers, whose bills must however be countersigned by the President of the Italian Republic.
Still in the sphere of legislative power, there are some cases in which it belongs to the sovereign people: through the institution of the abrogative referendum and, in constitutional matters, through the institution of the confirmatory referendum of constitutional laws. All laws must be promulgated by the President of the Italian Republic who can postpone it only once, otherwise he would have the right to veto a law in Parliament if he considers that it is in conflict with the Constitution.
Private law
is that part of a civil law legal system which is part of the jus commune that involves relationships between individuals, such as the law of contracts and torts, and the law of obligations. In Italian law, the main regulatory body for private law is the Italian civil code, which governs both civil and commercial law. The Italian civil code was approved with Royal decree no. 262 of 16 March 1942 and entered into force on 21 April of the same year. It was born from the merger between the Italian Civil Code of 1865 and the Italian Commercial Code of 1882. It is divided into six books, composed in turn into titles, chapters, sections, as well as 2,969 articles. The six books deal respectively of people and family, heritage, property, bonds, working and protection of rights.Public law
is the part of law that governs relations between legal persons and a government, between different institutions within a state, between different branches of governments, as well as relationships between persons that are of direct concern to society. Public law comprises constitutional law, administrative law and criminal law.Constitutional law
is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary. The Constitution of the Italian Republic is composed of 139 articles and arranged into three main parts: Principi Fondamentali, the Fundamental Principles ; Part I concerning the Diritti e Doveri dei Cittadini, or Rights and Duties of Citizens ; and Part II the Ordinamento della Repubblica, or Organisation of the Republic ; followed by 18 Disposizioni transitorie e finali, the Transitory and Final Provisions.The Constitution primarily contains general principles; it is not possible to apply them directly. As with many written constitutions, only few articles are considered to be self-executing. The majority require enabling legislation, referred to as accomplishment of constitution. This process has taken decades and some contend that, due to various political considerations, it is still not complete.