Law and Custom in the Age of Codification. Our Legal Culture from Theoretical Problems to Political Problems (In Memory of Silvana Castignone)

From Roman Law to the Enlightenment, there were opinions in favor of the primacy of law over custom, and those in favor of equalizing the two. Codification put an end to this debate in the Western world. Codification and constitutionalism thus appeared to be two sides of the same coin. However, this decision in favor of the primacy of the law left a theoretical question unanswered: What happens to a legislative norm that is generally not followed or applied? In addition, there is a problem of legal policy: constitutionalism and codification are not presented today as two sides of the same coin, but on the contrary as two projects that oppose each other in their foundations, objectives and consequences.