Gentili on Supreme and Constitutional Courts in a comparative perspective

A Comparative Perspective on Direct Access to Constitutional and Supreme Courts in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America: Assessing Advantages for the Italian Constitutional Court

Gianluca Gentili 

University of Siena, Economic Law Department
March 1, 2011

Penn State International Law Review, Vol. 29, 2011 
Abstract:      
Part I of this article provides a comparative overview of the origins, structure and functioning of the systems of direct access to constitutional and supreme courts adopted worldwide, addressing Latin American, European, Asian and African jurisdictions, focusing on the structure of the individual constitutional complaint and on admissibility requirements.

Part II will then address possible benefits (if any) of the introduction of such such a system in Italy. After presenting the main features of the Italian system of judicial review, the article will describe proposals that, since 1947, have been presented to introduce a system of direct access to the Italian Constitutional Court in order to supplement the already existing avenues of access to the Court.

Part III will then offer some reflections on the actual advantages (if any) that adoption of such a system would bring to the Italian legal system, compared to the already existing incidenter control of constitutionality ("controllo di costituzionalita in via incidentale").

Number of Pages in PDF File: 55