The constitutionalization of the political debate in Italy in the years of the “Second and Third Republic”

In the Italian legal system, the defence of the Constitution has gradually become, since the advent of the so-called “Second Republic” (and especially in the years of the Berlusconi Governments, from 1994 to 2011) a workhorse of sorts, especially for centre/left-wing parties, that often depicted policies proposed by the centre-right wing majority as an attempt to weaken the Republican Constitution. The argument takes root in the anti-fascist principle that lays at the foundation of the Italian Republican Constitution of 1948, and tries to leverage the unifying force of the strong rejection of the fascist ideology that was shared by the main Italian political parties represented in the Constituent Assembly. In the years of the “Second Republic” the “Constitutional defence” argument was spent, for example, in order to stop attempts to reform the judiciary, the job market, the conflict of interest between business and politics, the election law, or even, in a wider perspective, in electoral campaigns, as a call-to-arms for all centre-left parties to prevent the centre-right coalition from gaining a majority in Parliament. The situation did not change with the end of the bipolar political system (after the general election of 2013) and the advent of the so-called “Third Republic”. As a matter of fact, from a Constitutional Law perspective, it can be safely argued that the “Constitutional defence” argument was often used by political parties in instances in which there was no real threat for the Republican Constitution, as much so that the argument itself seems now to have grown weary, and to have lost its initial unifying force. During the 2022 general election, in which, for the first time in the Italian Republican history, a truly right-wing (and not centre-right) party (Brothers of Italy, led by Giorgia Meloni), seemed to have an actual chance to come out as the winner, the centre-left coalition decided to base its entire campaign on the claim that it was necessary, once again, to defend the Republican Constitution from a (real or perceived) fascist emergency. In fact, it could be even argued that the centre-left wing coalition did not have any real common political agenda, outside of that general claim. However, the argument did not work, and the electorate showed little concern for the issue, as Brothers of Italy went on to become the most voted (by a wide margin) party, and Giorgia Meloni was able to form a Government supported by a centre-right wing coalition in Parliament. The paper explores the history of the ”Constitutional defence” argument and its use by political parties in the Italian constitutional system in the years of the “Second Republic” and “Third Republic”, by trying to distinguish between cases in which the Constitution was really at risk, and cases in which the argument was moot.