Il fantasma della legalità. Fatti e misfatti della Corte costituzionale tra legge e Costituzione.

The essay makes a critical examination of the reasons for tension that several aspects of the activity of the Italian Constitutional Court have brought to light with regard to the system of 'constitutional legality'. More in particular, the study underlines how certain practices of Italian constitutional justice contrast with the state of law, and shows how the Court may be considered a subject that actually goes beyond (and often even against) its institutional mandate as laid out in positive law. In specific terms, this occurs every time the constitutional tribunal fails to stop at interpreting and applying the Constitution, but implements, integrates and modifies it; it fails to stop at cancelling unconstitutional laws/norms, but rather modifies such laws, integrating the Constitution in 'positive' terms; it thereby subtracts itself from the norms of law of which it is the direct recipient, likewisw inviting other subjects to violate the norms of law.