Back to the future: indications concerning constitutional reforms of political institutions for a real turning point with respect to a certain past and the interference of its napoleonic/aristocratic -influenced legacy
🌟 Introduction
This section is part of a comprehensive framework of much-needed and urgent political structural reforms that have been waiting too long to be implemented, as described in this article. Although the scenario under consideration pertains to Italy, the general points outlined apply to many countries, starting with some in continental Europe and extending to others around the world.
Reflections on democracy
Before delving into the details of the reforms, it is worth beginning with a fundamental reflection on models of a democratic republic. A true republic qualifies for the indissoluble link between the rule of law, popular sovereignty, a sovereignty expressed in a representative form that we must know how to adapt and involve citizens in, depending on the circumstances, and the right to the truth, the transparency of which can be limited only by concerns of secrecy. From this perspective, the use of democracy is justified to the extent that it serves as the primary barrier against all forms of fanaticism.
In my view, this vision of the Republic is similar to that of Giuseppe Mazzini, the anti-monarchist visionary behind “Youth Italy” and “Youth Europe,” which foreshadowed broader perspectives. Regardless of how one might view his political orientation, I have learned that self-classifications are relative. However, I assume there are likely differences of opinion with him: I am in favor of moving toward substantial administrative decentralization (as promoted by Article 5 of the Italian Constitution) in its various republican forms, invariably including the law enforcement agencies, perhaps in a less fragmented manner than in larger countries such as the United States; many modern nations, both in the rest of the world and in Europe, are now federations of states, up to City-States (Berlin is missing from the list in the article just cited) that have proven to be a successful model worldwide; another difference concerns the fact that, in my view, political action should generally be informed by secular principles.
I’ll begin with a challenge for readers, particularly scholars in the social, behavioral, and cultural-anthropological sciences, as well as politologists, who may have the necessary background to better evaluate the following observation:
“It's characteristic of democracy that majority rule is understood as being effective not only in politics but also in thinking. In thinking, of course, the majority is always wrong.”
cit. Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth (with Bill Moyers).
Among the concepts that human beings have developed throughout history is that of
democracy, for which there are no unambiguous and uncontroversial definitions, as there are none for the concept of the state, but more empirically and commonly accepted definitions, for a remarkable idea of theoretical democracy I still quote American President Abraham Lincoln with one of his famous phrases "Government of the people, by the people, for the people" (he would later be assassinated). But if we take Campbell's assumption, a 'perfect' democracy as envisioned by Lincoln in practice may not be feasible, since even not wishing to exacerbate it, would be characterized by the contrast between the fallacy of collective thinking (one reason may be because it is influenced by the individualistic human spirit?) and the regulatory mechanisms of a politics defining itself as democratic, and it would follow that democracy might sometimes or often prove to be an impediment to government action (here a more detailed discussion with assistant A.I., at the level of popularization in English). On the other hand, another aspect of democracy is the fact that it does not necessarily imply that everyone is capable of engaging in politics, and specific forms such as representative democracy would be in line with this. I wonder: if everyone were capable of engaging in politics, perhaps there would be no need for politics?
Another hypothesis of mine to explain Campbell's assertion is that the greater the lack of information or misinformation, and we have seen that in Italy in this respect we are not well off, and the more the 'wisdom of the crowd' is fallacious, this would be one more reason from which I would infer that in order to counter this phenomenon, when constituting the top leadership of a ruling class, we have to pay attention to their quality and their human and moral profile;
For example, I’d like to see whether people with empathetic personalities can have an impact on a nation’s good governance,
even though this is a difficult criterion to assess “technically”: perhaps by relying on the opinion of those who know such people, but even that is subjective, or a collection of various personal opinions...
In Italy, the top leadership positions would include the Prime Minister, ministers, perhaps undersecretaries, and parliamentary group leaders.
Then, drawing inspiration from the realities of the professional world, where a debate has been developing for decades between humanists and scientists, the humanities and engineering, “soft skills” and “hard skills,” there is often discussion about whether there is a substantial difference between a technocrat (such as an engineer or a doctor) and an expert in the humanities (such as an anthropologist or a literary scholar): in reality, not all technocrats are the same.
In today's increasingly complex society, addressing these challenges in politics requires synergistic cooperation across various disciplines.
That's why I believe that any team working in political affairs should include, along with those who have technological skills, nor excluding those who have none in particular or possess other relevant personal qualities, scholars in the modern humanities, social sciences, and psychological sciences. These include, for example, behavioral (neuro)sciences, also considering aspects of behavior such as ethics, then psychiatry, sociology, anthropology, political and economic anthropology, comparative psychology, sociobiology, environmental psychology, evolutionary psychology, and other related subjects, and historians. I would add that, in this day and age, there is growing concern about the increasingly pervasive impact of technology on human life. These reflections are giving rise to new professional figures that policymakers should take advantage of; in more developed countries, for example, professionals such as the “practical philosopher” are emerging.
And if the political leaders knew at least a little history, it would be even better.
Among these subjects of expertise I have not included others, which are not inherent to the study of the person as an individual and in the collective, such as political science or philosophy, because I think, even if the humanistic sensitivity is distributed among people with different backgrounds, that the subjects in the previous list tend to be approached by personalities who are more sensitive to our being humanity, which is what poli-tics essentially cannot do without.
And then, after all, a sociologist can also be a political scientist or philosopher. Finally, it goes without saying that politicians should not be influenced by hidden potentates of any kind: all this information must be accessible, as it would happen in other countries.
Another thought on another quote, this one from Irving Kristol, whose view is that [one result of] democracy is not to guarantee equality of conditions, but equality of opportunities: could it perhaps promote this? I don't know, in my opinion, not even this, it wouldn't have the strength, so I believe that, returning to Campbell's argument, a prudent political ruling class is perhaps 'forced' to seek solutions that balance the 'levels' of democracy of a people in proportion to their level of awareness, or conversely, to their level of ignorance.
Let's think about countries like Italy, where there is no shortage of 'crafty' people, soccer dependents, pimps (in line with the illegality that is now widespread throughout the world; we will look at some data on crime in Italy in a separate section) and with problems of functional illiteracy: it is not exactly an example of the aforementioned “popular wisdom”. And many brilliant young people are right to emigrate, draining this country of its talents.
So if we assume that one aspect of good politics involves the organizational structure of a society, democracy conceals within itself the risks of social entropy (disorder) in which someone has supposed an oppressive majoritarian form of government controlled by the common people through the intimidation of authorities, an argument that stimulated my curiosity.
And some have theorized that there would be historical periods characterized by this 'chaos', followed by periods of (self?) social reorganization, resulting in different systems of government that would repeat
cyclically throughout history. In any case, if you think about it, nothing is forever, for better or for worse (thankfully) including the fact that we must always be vigilant.
However, if equality of opportunity could be 'guaranteed', perhaps there would be less work to do for virtuous governments whose primary goal would be to pursue sustainable living conditions for any of their citizens who, for various reasons, are unable to overcome their undignified living conditions and have good will, or are disabled or have other causes ascertained to be force majeure. This is an understanding that should be part of a political dialogue that does not ignore the concept of natural law, of which here too there is an effective historical and conceptual summary on this subject.
For the sake of completeness, I have included some rankings regarding the level of democracy in different countries in the section entitled 'Rules of law'.
Anyway, this article focuses on the more basic and most complete expression of a modern republican State.
The Reforms
I took a look at the systems of government in other countries, including a few infographics on the U.S. system, for which I’ve included the references below.
Meanwhile, as far as Italy is concerned, in order to put into practice all my good intentions, and hopefully those of as many 'awakened' people as possible, priority must be given to reforms that protect legitimate governments from possible interference by other institutions that are alien to a modern concept of politics, where instead I find that in our and many other countries the normal 'weights' of politics are decisively counterbalanced by those of certain military elites and the President of the Republic. To explore this topic further, it would be useful to conduct separate comparative analyses with the organization of government systems in other countries that are more capable of maintaining more effective rule of law, such as the more strictly parliamentary republics than Italy, a country which, as we will see below, does not represent these cases. Of course, we must always bear in mind, as history teaches us, the inherently evolutionary nature of politics itself, and meanwhile, among others, take a look at the various institutional competences and related entities of the United States political system. This, of course, is regardless of the fact that governments themselves can 'do damage'.
Let’s take a closer look at the Italian case.
Although Italy is formally a parliamentary democracy, the President of the Republic covertly retains the characteristics of a Napoleonic-style “republican monarchy.” It was Napoleon himself, in fact, who first held the office of President of the Italian Republic in 1802 as 'First Consul of France' Napoleon Bonaparte, using that role as a testing ground for a strong, centralized executive branch. The modern prerogatives of the Head of State (here in more details), established in different parts of the current Constitution, partly mirror those of the monarch in the Statuto Albertino of 1848, which was itself influenced by imperial centralism and post-Napoleonic French constitutions.
There are specific historical and legal elements that confirm this legacy:
1. Historical Precedent (1802–1805): In the First Italian Republic (with Milan as its capital), the structure established by Napoleon was highly hierarchical and capable of bypassing parliamentary delays, a concept that would later evolve into the role of the constitutional monarch.
2. The Functions of the Statuto Albertino:
The office of President of the Italian Republic did not emerge out of nowhere with the Constituent Assembly of 1946, but inherited many functions that the Statuto Albertino had assigned to the King. Functions such as command of the Armed Forces, chairing the Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura, the power to dissolve Parliament, and even the role of supreme “arbitrator” in government crises are typical prerogatives of a “republican monarch.”
3. The Role of “Guardian” or “Arbitrator”: The idea of the Head of State as a “neutral power” dates back to the theorist Benjamin Constant, who was active during the Napoleonic era. Constant envisioned a supreme power that would intervene in crises to restore order—a dynamic that is evident today in government crises during the choice of the Prime Minister.
4. Centralism and National Unity: The idea of the Head of State as the physical embodiment of National Unity is a typically Napoleonic concept. While in republican models such as Switzerland’s, power is collegial and dispersed, in Italy the figure of the ‘single man’ remains strong, serving as a guarantor of the state above political parties.
This grants the Head of State genuine "extra" powers, which favor his role as an actor of interference in political affairs. These powers are mainly those that you will see underlined in the list below. First of all, I invite you to seriously consider some of them: those of Head of the Armed Forces (in other strictly parliamentary republics, this power is held by a President-Prime Minister) and President of the Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura (an administrative body of self-government, with the exception of its president, of the judiciary). There are also other functions which, although 'indirectly', strengthen his role in political decision-making, even though Article 89 of the Constitution requires ministers to countersign presidential acts. I will list them here for the benefit of most readers: he appoints one third of the members of the Constitutional Court, ratifies international treaties subject to parliamentary authorization, declares a state of war decided by the Chambers, can dissolve the Chambers, calls elections, appoints the Prime Minister and Ministers, appoints up to five senators for life, promulgates laws (with the possibility of sending them back to Parliament) and issues decrees having the force of law and regulations, and authorizes the presentation of government bills to Parliament, calls referendums, and appoints certain high-ranking state officials. So, given the powers given to him, which are concentrated in this monocratic institution (meaning it's a single body made up of just one person) and self-determined, which is currently the President of the Republic, these often and unhindered result in powers of political direction, despite the fact that some, whether partisan or not, would have us believe otherwise: proof of this is the long history of various interferences in Italian politics by the Head of State, of which I will shortly mention some of the most recent and representative episodes.
Various episodes in our history could therefore only confirm a power parallel to that of the government, Parliament, and the judiciary (among the most prominent examples I have gleaned from online A.I. sources are the mandates of Giovanni Gronchi, Francesco Cossiga, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, Giorgio Napolitano, and Sergio Mattarella, to which I would add Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, who was in office during that political period of the 'sinisters' , which I discussed in this article). Besides this article, which will please some and displease others, but here it is not the purpose of these interventions by the presidential institution that interests us now, but rather how these episodes, among the most recent, are very representative of the interference of heads of state (which is why I propose radical reforms to this problem below), I leave here a brief list of historical analyses on the subject for those who wish to learn more, almost all in English:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
An analysis of certain historical periods in Europe, supported by statistical data from my own study on the correlation between forms of government and the existence of multiple national police forces (including gendarmeries), demonstrates a clear fact: the spread of the gendarmerie has gone hand in hand with the functions of the Presidents of the Republic in systems similar to the Italian one. In fact, our model clearly reflects the legacy of the monarchs of the Conservative Order, which in turn drew upon the legacy of Napoleonic institutions.
Then, we can see Italy's political system as having certain similarities with a semi-presidential republic, guess what? French-style, which has a diarchic structure in the management of executive power, split between the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister [external note], with some differences compared to France, where the President of the Republic is elected by the people, as is the National Assembly (part of Parliament along with the Senate), and his term of office has been reduced to 5 years⁹.
According to a definition that is widely accepted, Italy has a parliamentary republic form of government, as classified by Wikipedia itself, but, perhaps for reasons of brevity, it presents categories in general terms (the same entry in English has a few more), which gloss over the many variations/details that exist on a case-by-case basis (with the extreme case being that each state or community would be a category in itself), although this aspect is discussed in the text of the referenced entry. Moreover, in Italy, a nation with many dark, nuanced aspects, which no ruling class has ever escaped, and with which the Cupola generally 'wallow', our 'hybrid' political system presents shady areas that are unacceptable for a true republic. I would therefore define Italy as a parliamentary republic, at least with reservations.
Therefore, in order to progress towards a more realistic Republic, in addition to the reform of the police forces, institutional reforms of historic significance are needed for Italy and other nations that have been left behind.
Setting aside comparisons with other nations that have “demilitarized” political models,
the issue is complex and of the utmost importance; however, first and foremost, we must thoroughly review institutions such as the office of the President of the Republic in certain nations: to move toward a more strictly parliamentary republic, one option would be to replace those historical functions that we have seen are the prerogative of the President of the Italian Republic with more collegial and widespread (though not overly “dispersed”) bodies or entities, in a more popular sense. I have already cited the example of Switzerland, which has an executive body that serves as both Head of State and Head of Government, albeit one that cannot be removed by a vote of no confidence, similar to this model.
These collegial bodies can serve the purpose of implementing, to borrow a metaphor that has gained some traction among those interested in politics (which, unfortunately, not many people are), a form of “counterweight” to the other branches of government (in the French semi-presidential system, a sort of balance between its two executive bodies can only be achieved during periods of cohabitation, which are now much less likely following a reform of election schedules and the length of the president’s term).
Alternatively, following comparative analyses with other countries around the world where other forms of government have been tested to a reasonable extent, like Germany, Ireland, Iceland, India, and many Commonwealth nations that have maintained clearer distinctions between ceremonial and executive authority, we should consider whether the constitutional reform should go further, providing for a more 'parliamentary' reorganization, which would involve either a Head of State with a purely representative/ceremonial role, with executive power vested exclusively in a President-Prime Minister and his ministers, whose actions would be "scrutinized" by Parliament and other existing bodies (which I will mention), or the abolition of this institution.
Now, I am not an expert in some humanities discipline supported by legal scholars, political scientists, and other technical professionals useful for this purpose who truly have ideas for renewal (if only more people had them!), but in short, complex yet urgent issues arise, for which working committees had already been established during past legislative sessions to address such important matters, without ever managing to make concrete progress in a reform process.
This is because the problem that proposals for major reforms, which have so far proved to be inconclusive, have encountered is mainly due to the fact that they often involve amendments to the Constitution, which means that the procedure for approving the relevant constitutional amendment bills (under Article 138) must be taken into account; this procedure is more complex than that required for the approval of ordinary laws.
While it is important to respect the procedure, at the same time these past experiences teach us that there is a risk of an indefinite deadlock; so the need for major reforms like these should bring all political factions seriously to the table, such as a constituent assembly (or, as it was called at the time, a “bicameral” assembly, and there’s also a comparable term in journalistic jargon: bi(or tri...)-partisan), with greater capacity for synthesis to avoid impractical complexities, because this should be in the interest of all parties for the good of the Nation!
In this regard, this fact sheet highlights some past attempts at constitutional reforms.
Continuing the discussion, starting from this 'confused' Italian political reality, in my opinion one of the priority solutions is a parliamentary appointment of governments without the presidential passage for the more or less "formal" appointment of the Prime Minister and Ministers, and the protection of their pre-established temporal stability, obviously regardless of their political 'color', naturally with maximum time limits for each term of office, but as we will see in more detail, in cases of re-election, I propose gradually decreasing periods. And since, regarding this matter, the current government (2026) is proposing the election of the Prime Minister by universal suffrage, and elsewhere we have cases of the direct election of a head of state (for example, in France), based on what I discussed earlier regarding democracy, I have asked myself questions like: ignoring considerations regarding current characteristics and composition of a “people,” how much direct “people power” vs. expert or deliberative “qualified majority” power (e.g. a Parliament) should shape the executive? I discussed this topic with the AI; here is the reference link.
Here I am dealing with urgent issues and calling for practical and effective proposals to be tested, and I repeat, without any political partisanship: I believe that the advantage of averting politically unacceptable external interference in the main political bodies is a priority.
Continuing the discussion, with the aim of exercising oversight over the actions of the executive and legislative branches, the balance of powers between the government and Parliament could be effectively restructured.
Then, as regards who elects the Constitutional Court ², which is the most important institution guaranteeing the constitutionality of laws in Italy, an issue that I consider very delicate, in my (not so modest) opinion, the power of the President of the Republic to appoint one third of the members would either be abolished (in which case half of the members would be appointed by Parliament and the rest by the higher courts), or would be assigned to some collegial body of another legal nature competent to indicate personalities suitable for the guidelines referred to in note (2a) (based on what I said in the section on democracy, I would suggest a body that includes experts in the humanities); furthermore, speaking as a layperson, I would suggest that the Constitutional Court have the power to intervene on its own initiative in cases where it deems it necessary to do so. With regard to another sensitive issue, namely the need to 'mediate' or 'arbitrate' on the proper management of the constitutional autonomy of the judiciary, a role now assigned to the President of the Republic in his capacity as President of the Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura, there would probably be more debate on how to replace this role: for example, whether by an individual or collegial body (in this case, a more collective presidency would add bureaucratic complexity), composed of whom, whether it would also be a supervisory body, and if collegial, whether composed of legal entities of different natures, etc. Similar questions apply to who would elect the president(s), since they would have to be elected by someone independent of the C.S.M. itself. A few words about the work of magistrates (but also lawyers, who I understand are rightly well paid; in my opinion, there must also be public lawyers who are equally well paid): their work requires, first and foremost, impeccable moral integrity (as it must be for intelligence services), and think about it, they play a highly responsible role (even more so in criminal proceedings), for some there is a high personal risk, combined with what I believe to be a very demanding commitment, so they must not only be paid a lot (as public doctors must be), but the judicial work organization must also ensure that possible (and perhaps currently probable) work overload is avoided (there is a technical term for this, Occupational burnout): are there enough judges in Italy for the workload of the proceedings? No? Let's hire them with assistants and support staff. It's a matter of protecting those who already work and ensuring fair rights for everyone.
Having closed this parenthesis, continuing with the case of possible reforms towards a parliamentary republic, if some people, and currently it will not be a few, think that the abolition of the office of President of the Republic seems too much, I would say to them that consideration could be given to maintaining this institutional figure in a purely representative role for the nation.
For the sake of completeness with regard to the current institutional control bodies, I would like to mention also other organs provided for in the Constitution in the Italian political system (here is more detailed in italian), which is summary, taken together, have jurisdictional, control, public audit, advisory, and executive powers (i.e., they can impose mandatory actions), such as the Council of State
³ (which is also the court of appeal for decisions of the Regional Administrative Courts) with regard to administrative acts, the Court of Auditors⁴ with jurisdiction over public accounting matters, and, at a more purely advisory and monitoring level, the National Council for Economics and Labor (CNEL)⁵, with powers of legislative initiative and the faculty to contribute to the drafting of legislation on economic and social matters. it should be noted here that towards the end of 2016 this body came to the forefront of Italian public opinion, as its abolition was provided for in the Renzi-Boschi constitutional reform, which was then rejected by a constitutional referendum. The list of these bodies is completed by the controversial Consiglio Supremo di Difesa ⁶.
In conclusion, I would like to mention cases in which binding consultative power is vested in the people, through the institution of the abrogative referendum and, in constitutional matters, through the institution of the confirmatory referendum on constitutional laws (for an overview, see this this section of a Wikipedia entry).
If, moreover, we were to consider a more general overhaul within framework of broader reforms to the organization of at least some part of the Italian political system, I envision a concerted effort by cleverly devised political bodies inspired by ideas such as control, guarantee, supervision, and mediation, by and between different public institutions, also including/reviewing more or less the current ones (for example, we have auditors), with a possible Head of State having only representative/ceremonial functions, and introducing where necessary arbitration panels similarly to probity arbitrators, juries, auditors and 'peer reviewers' without policy-making powers, and certainly without functions such as presiding over the Armed Forces and others such as those specifically underlined above with regard to the Head of State in its current form, all without overburdening the bureaucratic machine.
Finally, I will not elaborate here on questions such as who controls the controllers (but then who controls the controllers of the controllers? Or: what mutual control mechanisms should be introduced? Etc.), since it is impossible to control everything, seeking a balanced synthesis so as not to undermine decision-making capacity and timing: we could simply say that it would be 'too much bureaucracy of bureaucracy'. Perhaps this will be the subject of a separate post with technical details, which I will link to here.
Another aspect that I consider of paramount importance is that of the systems for allocating seats in all constitutional bodies like the Parliament, commonly referred to as “electoral laws,” not to be confused with technical voting procedures, and, along with crucial provisions such as the secrecy of the ballot, the regulation of these matters should be included directly in the Constitution or delegated to a law of constitutional rank.
In addition, these desired reforms will provide for well-modulated limits on the number and duration of the mandates of a President-Prime Minister, as well as his or her overall term of office, in order to control potential autocratic tendencies. As for the length of terms of office, among my reflections, I’d like to throw out an alternative idea for consideration, with the benefit of the doubt, since, being an original concept, its potential effectiveness has not yet been tested. The idea is to set the term of a single Prime Minister, including cases of reappointment, divided into sub-periods of progressively decreasing duration, for example, 5 then 3 then 2 years, or 4-3-2-1, or 4-3-3 years: a longer duration at the start would account for the “start-up” phase, and subsequently decreasing durations would mark moments of review: if, after a certain period, the leader retains the voters’ confidence, they will be re-elected; otherwise, in the event of a new government, the process starts over from the first sub-period, until the next electoral review, with a maximum limit of, say, 10 years of total tenure for each Prime Minister. Then, as is the case now, provisions will be made for managing other aspects such as cases of no confidence/resignations/interruptions of government for any reason. And I would not expect prohibitive increases in organizational and electoral costs, especially by making greater use of proven technology, such as televoting systems at polling stations, with verification systems using digital signatures.
Then, if any readers have better solutions to the big problem of illegitimate interference in political institutions, I would be happy to hear them.
Notes
1) A story in itself is the tax haven Republic of San Marino, which also maintains multiple police forces, military-ordered and civilian jurisdiction, on the other hand in a country that seems proud of chivalric orders of nostalgic medieval evocation... I have nothing against medieval history, but history is also about change, to indicate here 'methods' that are no longer applicable to the modern era (San Marino medals, decorations and chivalric orders).
As for the birth of the Corps of Gendarmerie of Vatican City, is called this considering that from a legal point of view this state is an absolute monarchy, with a legacy similar to other former European monarchies, hinting that they are militias with a historical evolution similar to their gendarmeries.
2) The Constitutional Court judges any disputes on the constitutional legitimacy of the laws, and conflicts of attribution of powers between different organs of the State. The ways in which it acts are in principal or action, considered a prior action, and in an incidental or exception, considered a subsequent action; this does not provide for the Court to apply a 'motu proprio' principle, nor is it obliged to checks within its competence on each and every legislative enactment or act having the force of law. Italy ratified the Treaty on the Establishment of the International Criminal Court, the European Court of Human Rights and, in 2014, accepted the mandatory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice.
2a) [voters of the Constitutional Court] "This mixed structure is intended to give balance to the Constitutional Court: to foster this balance the constituent [Assembly] associates, in the composition of the body, the high technical-legal background and the necessary political sensitivity."
[https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corte_costituzionale_(Italia)#Composizione]
3) In the exercise of its advisory function, the Council of State provides opinions regarding the regularity and legitimacy, merit, and expediency of administrative acts of individual ministries, the Government as a collegial body, or regions.
[https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consiglio_di_Stato_(Italia)#Attribuzioni_consultive]
In the judiciary, it has the function of tutelage [including of citizens] against the acts of the public administration. In particular, the Council of State is the second instance of administrative justice, i.e., the court of appeal against the decisions of the Regional Administrative Tribunal (TAR). In addition, the Council of State functions as a single-degree judge in the judgment of compliance, that is, in that judgment aimed at obtaining that a public administration execute a judgment issued by the ordinary judge or the Council of State itself. [https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consiglio_di_Stato_(Italia)#Attribuzioni_giurisdizionali]
4) Corte dei conti
https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corte_dei_conti_(Italia)
5) Consiglio Nazionale dell'Economia e del Lavoro (CNEL), a detailed description in Italian:
https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consiglio_Nazionale_dell%27Economia_e_del_Lavoro#Funzioni.
A description in English:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Council_for_Economics_and_Labour
6) (Supreme Council of Defence (Italy))
"Its powers are largely delineated in negative terms, this is because in practice the majority of the practical decision-making powers mentioned in Law no.624/1950 actually belong to other institutions. In particular, those elements of the political process which relate to foreign affairs and military policy belong to the executive, and the Chief of the Defence Staff is responsible for the formulation of strategic plans and the defence of the borders. As a result, the council limited to playing a consultative and advisory role to the Council of Ministers, much like an Inter-ministerial Committee." (cit. Wikipedia)
7) President of the Republic from 1999 to 2006: Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.
1998-2000: Government of D'Alema 1 and 2, with Russo Jervolino and Bianco (Interior) -Pasini and Mattarella (Defense) -Visco (Finance) -Diliberto (Grace and Justice); it is worth noting that in those years Italy also participated in the Kosovo war.
2000-2001: Government Amato 2, with Bianco (Interior) -Mattarella (Defense) -Del Turco (Finance)-Fassino (Grace and Justice).
Also worth noting is the European Council of Nice in December 2000, which gave rise to the aforementioned phantom EuroGendFor.
8)
9) In France, an example historically taken as a reference by observers as a semi-presidential republic, the French executive power is given the appellation Bicephalous ('two brains', editor's note), shared between the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister, head of government, and France remains a parliamentary republic with (strong) presidential influence. A more accurate definition of the form of government could be a presidentialized parliamentary regime or a bi-representative parliamentary regime [external note], or we can still speak of, excluding periods of cohabitation, a presidential interpretation of the Constitution
10) Work is changing...
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Within the national network, the company collaborates with public employment services, employment agencies, universities, schools, ITS (technical colleges) and other institutions, creating synergies to develop integrated policies at national and local level in various areas: promoting the social and labour inclusion of vulnerable people through the creation of local networks and partnerships and the implementation of integrated active policy pathways; strengthening work-based learning methods (Dual System) and the dissemination of Higher Technological Education, with the dual objective of promoting youth employment and reducing the mismatch between workers' skills and those required by businesses.
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Last updated: Jun 3, 2026
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