05896 - Judiciary Regulation System

Learning outcomes

The course aims at providing knowledge about:

a) the role of the judicial power in States with democratic and liberal tradition

b) the structure of the administration of justice in Italy

c) the organization and the jurisdiction of the Italian judicial offices

d) the anomaly of our Country in comparison to the other democratic States, with particular reference to Europe, notwithstanding the recent judicial and constitutional reforms.

Course contents

The course aims to provide students with a thorough understanding of the functioning of the Italian judicial system, in a comparative and historical perspective. The interest in the functioning of the justice system is not the exclusive prerogative of legal studies but increasingly involves scholars from different disciplines: from economists to statisticians, from political scientists to organizational experts, from mathematicians to computer scientists (one can consider, for example, the potential of artificial intelligence in the justice sector). Thanks to the multidisciplinary approach and the contributions of different disciplines, real improvements in the functioning of the justice system will be possible.

 

The course focuses, in the first part, on the characteristics of judicial institutions and judicial organization, referring to the roles of the main players in the judicial process: the judge, the public prosecutor, the police, and the lawyer. The first part provides students with the basic concepts and notions.

 

The second part, on the other hand, analyses more in detail the characteristics of the judicial and prosecutorial offices of the ordinary jurisdiction. With respect to these offices (and their functioning), a number of current topics of particular interest will be identified for further study, with the collaboration of the lecturer. On these topics, students will be encouraged to participate in research and in-class discussions. Some topics will refer to, e.g., judicial independence and the Rule of Law; the evaluation of magistrates; the separation between the career of judges and public prosecutors; justice and artificial intelligence; the European Public Prosecutor's Office.

 

Course topics will be contextualized in a historical and comparative perspective in order to highlight both the main trends common to major Western democracies and the peculiarities of the Italian judicial system.

Readings/Bibliography

Main text (also for Erasmus students):

G. DI FEDERICO (a cura di), Ordinamento Giudiziario. Uffici giudiziari, CSM e governo della magistratura, BUP, Bologna, 2019.

Two additional readings to be chosen among the following (also for Erasmus students):

- G. DI FEDERICO, Il pubblico ministero: indipendenza, responsabilità, carriera separata da quella del giudice, in G. Di Federico (a cura di), Manuale di Ordinamento Giudiziario, Cedam, Padova, 2004, pp. 415-452; 

- S. ZAN, Il sistema organizzativo della giustizia civile in Italia: caratteristiche e prospettive, in Quaderni di Giustizia e organizzazione, Comiug, n. 1;

- D. CAVALLINI, Analisi della disciplina e prime riflessioni sui profili ordinamentali della Procura europea, in Diritto di Difesa (pp. 1-15), 14 May 2021;

- L. SALAZAR, Habemus Eppo! La lunga marcia della Procura europea, in Arch. pen., 2017, n. 3;

- F. CONTINI, Artificial Intelligence and the Transformation of Humans. Law and Technology Interactions in Judicial Proceedings, in https://lthj.qut.edu.au/article/download/1478/910;

- M. VELICOGNA, Cross-border dispute resolution in Europe: looking for a new “normal”, in OÑATI Socio-legal Series Volume 12, Issue 3 (2022);

- A. MINISSALE, Scrutinising gut feelings: emotional reflexive practices in Italian courts, in Emotions and Society, XX(XX);

- F. CONTINI, A. MINISSALE, S. BERGMAN BLIX, Artificial intelligence and real decisions: predictive systems and generative AI vs. emotive-cognitive legal deliberations, in Front. Sociol. 9:1417766;

 

Erasmus students do not have a specific syllabus; the syllabus and texts to be prepared for the exam are as indicated above.

 

Course programs regarding previous years can be found in the past editions of the Student Web Guide (please, check the relevant year).

Teaching methods

The method will be ex cathedra. A few seminars may be organized on specific issues, with the participation of judges, prosecutors and experts.

Assessment methods

Oral exam. 

Students attending the course are given the possibility to replace the oral exam with a written paper on a specific topic agreed with the Professor. The paper is designed as a personal elaboration of the topics covered in class and must be no less than 10 pages. The paper is discussed orally with the Professor on the occasion of the exam appeals (so it must be sent to the Professor a few days before the date of the relevant appeal). The discussion will also range to other topics covered during the course. If the grade obtained after the discussion is not deemed satisfactory, the student has the option of taking the oral examination (on the entire program) to improve the final grade.

In both cases (oral exam and written paper) the evaluation will take into account: 1) the knowledge of institutional profiles; 2) the ability to make connections between the different parts of the program; 3) the ability to develop critical arguments in summary form; 4) the structure of the answers; 5) the accuracy of the exposure.

The final grade will be determined as follows:

18-19: very poor knowledge of the course's contents;

20-24: poor knowledge of the course's contents and limited capacity to organize critical thoughts;

25-29: good knowledge of the course's contents and good capacity to organize critical thoughts;

30-30 cum laude: excellent knowledge of the course's contents and excellent capacity to organize critical thoughts;

Teaching tools

Slides and further documents may be used during the course to analyse specific subjects. They will be available in the virtual space of the course (Virtuale.unibo.it). Supplementary texts may include legislative texts, circulars and minutes, news articles from major newspapers, and research reports.

Office hours

See the website of Daniela Cavallini