Bargaining Constitutional Design in Italy: Judicial Review as Political Insurance

Abstract

Why would politicians, who expect to hold political power in the future, choose to create a constitutional court with the power of judicial review that can veto politicians' policies? Some theories suggest that international forces may be causal, as institutions or ideas are diffused geographically or within legal systems. Others focus on domestic politics as driving the decision to institute judicial review. Among these are the commitment, hegemonic preservation, party alternation and insurance theories. This article looks at the decision to establish a constitutional court in the Republic of Italy, the first post-World War II court in Europe that was not in a federal system. It argues that the insurance model drove the decision of the Italian Christian Democrats to support creation of a constitutional court at the point of constitutional design, but later to delay implementation once in power. Conversely, the Italian Communist–Socialist bloc opposed establishment of the court at the Constituent Assembly that wrote the post-war constitution on the ideological ground that it was contrary to popular sovereignty. However, once the leftist bloc found itself in the role of the opposition, it became a champion of the Constitutional Court and judicial review. The insurance theory is shown to explain the behaviour of the Christian Democrats in both design and implementation phases and the actions of the Communist–Socialist bloc during implementation.

Notes

1. Notably, in 2006, a similar law, what has been called proportional representation ‘with a majority bonus’, whereby the winning party or electoral alliance is given an electoral bonus to guarantee it a governing majority, was put in place by the Berlusconi government (Wilson 2009: 217).