The evolutionary process of 'Civil law in constitutional legality'. A lecture at the Milan Civil Chamber

Since the early 1950s, doctrinal and jurisprudential perspectives have questioned the normative effectiveness of constitutional principles and their direct applicability in private relations. For the author of this work, in a unitary and complex legal system with a rigid Constitution, such as the Italian one-founded on a plurality of sources of different origin and rank-the constitutionalization of civil law institutions requires a reinterpretation of its norms in accordance with the Constitution. This approach differs from an interpretation merely guided by constitutional criteria. In the author's view, this means that the interpretative approaches of the constitutional judge and the ordinary judge must necessarily align. It also implies that the wording of a lower-rank provision can never be considered binding when its rationale does not comply with constitutional legality