JUS

The ‘monolithic’ principle of criminal causality, accepted in the Italian penal code of 1930, is opposed, in Roman sources, by a multiplicity of causal relationships, taken as model on the concreteness of the cases analyzed by the jurists. The phenomenon, however, does not turn into an arbitrary selection of the elements necessary to establish a strict juridical link between event and conduct, but rather, in the evaluation of those, inside the framework of the specific characteristics of the action, within which they find themselves operate.

The ordinances of mayors have an ancient origin and have always been at the center of the constitutionalist debate. Their discipline has undergone several changes over the years. For ten years the mayors have also acquired the power to adopt the ordinances even in the controversy concerning “urban security”. The paper, briefly reconstructing the past discipline and constitutional case law, analyzes the changes introduced in 2017, providing an interpretation consistent with the Constitution, which allows the mayors to exercise their powers, without exceeding them.

The essay deals with the new nation-wide collective agreement of the manufacturing sector on industrial relations and collective bargaining, signed on the 9 March 2018 by Confindustria, Cgil, Cisl and Uil. The new document is analysed in the light of previous agreements on the same subjects, concluded in 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014: according to the author it is possible to outline a pattern of reconstruction of the industrial relations system after the very disputed agreements of 2009, which were not signed by the most important Italian trade union, the Cgil. In this frame the agreement of 2018 aims at completing the collective bargaining system by setting down rules on the indexation of wages and the pay structure, and by giving indications on the new matters to be negotiated at industry-wide level. The new agreement has not attracted particular attention from the scholars and other observers: the principal reason is the wide degree of ineffectiveness which has affected previous agreements, even when they have been signed by all the most important trade unions. Consequentially, the author concludes that the time is ripe for a legislative intervention: there are problems, concerning employee representatives in the workplace, collective bargaining rules and erga omnes effects, derogation clauses and peace clauses, which pure voluntarism is not able to solve.

Having set out threshold considerations on the evolution of the notion of “vulnerable victim” in the European perspective, this article investigates the vulnerability factors of the gender-based violence victims, including the dependence from the aggressive partner, and considers possible consequences, also in relation to the punishment, of the application of the “Individual assessment of victims to identify specific protection needs”, under Article 22 of Directive 2012/29/UE. The Author suggests proceeding with caution when it comes to assessing the victim vulnerability, in particular, warning against the risk inherent to a direct contact between the judge and the victim.

The aim of this paper is to retrace the central passages of Benhabib’s thought in relation to Ricoeur’s considerations in order to deepen the theoretical aspects of these positions. These are coherent with the ontological structure of the human being as a “subjectivity universally founded on the relationship”. This, as I will be able to show, enters into the constitution of what is the juridical and is configured as the criterion of acceptability of the cultural variant, founding the same notion of dignity at the origin of human rights.

The relationship between religion and multiculturalism is complex, depending on definitions of the key concepts and the societal contexts in which it occurs. In Western Europe discussions of multiculturalism usually involve religion: in fact, issues of religious diversity, pluralism, and multiculturalism are deeply intertwined in our history, culture, and legal arrangements. Thus the two spheres of social regulation, law and religion, each tend to expand their claims. The old solution of an alliance between an organised religion and a law is not available in the multicultural society. All fields of human activity are affected, but there are some in which the tensions are especially visible. Some of these are those affected by questions concerning: the integrity and autonomy of religious worship and ceremony; the enforcement of religious rules of conduct (such as dietary rules, rules on animal slaughter, and dress rules); the regulation of family relations (including the formation of marriage, marital relations, divorce, parent-child relations, and property inheritance); the regulation of education; and the provision of gender equality. In recent times the relationship of separate, largely autonomous normative orders has been radically changed, and tensions between law and religion have grown. The principal forces for change have been those of globalisation, especially the increase in long-distance mobility. There has been an upsurge of international, and especially inter-continental migration. This has resulted in an increase in the degree and visibility of cultural diversity in many societies. Virtually all states have always been multicultural, but today many are far more multicultural than they were. In the multicultural society there is no religious homogeneity, and the possibility of an alliance between state and religion, or accommodation between state law and religious normative orders, is reduced. There may be a strong desire for social continuity, on the part of both hosts and immigrants, who see this as providing security. But this desire is not easy to satisfy today. Moreover, there are trends in both the modern state and in religion which urge change, often in incompatible ways, and these contribute to the tensions between law and religion. Maybe the solution could be the creation of a common “code”.

The paper moves from the hypothesis of a non-discontinuous framing of the multicultural theme, finding in the otherness and the radical plurality of human beings, as well as in the consequent appeal to their freedom the very foundation of criminal law as a human-oriented project. The approach to cultural plurality as a problem is critically evaluated, as well as the signature (dis)solutions of the postmodern reflection, which proposes a temporal, territorial and valorial relativization of criminal norms, in the wake of an “in context”, global and neutral(ized) law. An alternative and inclusive approach is identified in considering cultural plurality as a systematic-critical resource for criminal law, in terms of prevention, legislation, factfinding and statual response to crime.

A particular pre-modern form of management of multiculturalism and religious pluralism is represented by the Ottoman Empire which, despite being a confessional State that welcomed Islam as a state religion, recognized to the members of the other two monotheistic religions, Judaism and Christianity, the freedom to profess one’s religious faith freely and to establish oneself in separate enclaves with broad spheres of self-government. In fact, each religious community exercised genuine legislative and jurisdictional autonomy in certain well-defined areas of public and private law. The Ottoman Sultans, far from pursuing the forced conversion of all subjects to the Islamic religion, see in the religious factor and in the multi-confessional nature of the Empire an organizational principle of State power and an instrument for preserving the stability of the State. It is the millet system founded on the institute of divine law of the dhimma. After providing some historical coordinates about the origins of the system, this contribution describes its fundamentals and functioning.