The Courts in Italy

Before starting our analysis we wish to point out that our work will refer mainly to the ordinary courts. Indeed, it is in this field that we have concentrated our efforts of research, so that our statements can be supported by a great amount of empirical knowledge. In fact, as regards the administrative courts and the Constitutional Court, our work will rest more on formal data. However, this qualification by no means reduces, we believe, the general value of our study. Indeed, we have to take into account that the ordinary magistrates are by far the largest corps: in 1983 they were 6682 against 842 administrative court judges.1 Thus, at least from a quantitative point of view the decisions made by the ordinary judiciary possess obviously a greater impact. But also from a qualitative point of view the political impact of our ordinary courts is not to be underrated: ordinary magistrates completely control the criminal process, since, as we shall see, in Italy the prosecution of criminal cases is monopolised by the ordinary judiciary, besides which the highest ordinary court, the Court of Cassation, plays a major role in the overall judicial system. It is then clear that, even though we must not neglect the role of other institutions, like the Constitutional Court, our ordinary judiciary shows, especially in the day-to-day functioning of the judicial system, a higher degree of political significance.