Course 2016-2017 a.y.

Course Objectives

The main purpose of this course is to provide students with an advanced introduction to comparative constitutional law.

Course Content Summary

• General Introduction: sources of law, constitutions, constitutional amendments constitutional statutes, ordinary statutes, law decrees, legislative decrees and delegated legislation, bye-laws and regulations.
• Forms of State and Transitions to Democracy. Forms of Government. Electoral laws.
• Federalism, Regionalism and Devolution in a comparative context.
• Constitutional Justice: composition, role and functions of Constitutional and Supreme Courts. The fundamental aspects of American and European models of constitutional review. Classification of Court judgments and analysis of decision-making techniques.
• The legal system of the European Union: system of legal sources and the relationship between European law and domestic legislation; the institutional structure; the evolution of the case law of the ECJ and domestic courts.
• Political, economic and civil rights and related safeguards in a comparative context.
• Special Part that shall decided at the beginning of the course.

Detailed Description of Assessment Methods

• The written exam consists of 40 multiple choice questions and 1 short essay. The exam format will be the same for attending and non-attending students, but the content will be different (see above).
• Please note that there is only one written final exam every academic year at the end of the course semester; students have to sit oral exams in all other sessions. Students from previous academic years can only sit the written or oral exam as non-attending students.

Textbooks

• G.F. Ferrari (ed.), Introduction to Italian Public Law, Giuffrè, Milano, 2008, (only Chapters 1, 3, 4, 8, 10 and 14).
• Articles, cases and other material that will be made available by the instructors at the beginning of the course also through the use of the e-learning space.
  

• G.F. Ferrari (ed.), Introduction to Italian Public Law, Giuffrè, Milano, 2008, (all chapters).