The main research interest has been the comparative analysis of
structural and functional traits of judicial system, with special
emphasis on democratic and transitional countries. More
specifically, he has analyzed the characters of judicial guarantees
of independence, their main traits and their evolution. A similar
attention has been devoted to the status and role of public
prosecution and to the principle of compulsory prosecution. More
recently, his interests have focused on the process of
judicialization of politics - that is, the expansion of judicial
power - with specific attention to Italy and Europe and on the
increasing significance of supranational and transnational justice
for national courts.
Current research projects:
- The
relationships between the judicial system and the political system
in Italy and Europe;
- The
Dilemmas of Judicial Power, directed by Centre for the Study of
Law and Society of the University of California, Berkeley;
- The Implementation of
Human Rights Rulings in Europe and Latin America, in
collaboration with 6 Latin American universities and with the
Universities of Wisconsin at Madison and of Texas at Austin;
- Menu
for Justice. Toward a European Curriculum Studiorum on Judicial
Studies, an Erasmus LLP, coordinated together with Daniela
Piana.
The expansion of judicial power in contemporary democracies is a
well-known phenomenon, although it shows specific traits in
different countries: while in some political systems courts play a
particularly significant role, there are other cases in which
judicial participation to the process of policy-making and policy
implementation is more limited. In continental Europe there seems
to be a division between the judicial systems of the
German-Scandinavian area and those of Latin Europe. In the former,
the relationships between courts and politics seem still arranged
according to the traditional division of labour, where political
institutions enact general norms and courts limit themselves to
their application, the institution of forms of constitutional
review not having radically affected the situation. In Latin Europe
the situation is different. Here, judicial guarantees of
independence have been significantly strengthened and the
institution of forms of constitutional review has influenced the
prevailing definition of the judicial role, which today supports
the autonomy of the judge vis-à-vis the political branches. The aim
of the research is to analyze current changes in this area,
focusing on France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Belgium. More
specifically, the prevailing definitions of the judicial role and
the propensity toward activism will be analyzed. The first results
of this work have been inserted in the project “Dilemmas of
Judicial Power”, organized by the University of California at
Berkeley and supported also by the collaboration agreement between
that university and Bologna. In the future, the concrete
implementation of judicial guarantees of independence as well the
recommendations on the matter by various international and
supra-national institutions – like the United Nations and the
Council of Europe - will be continuously monitored.
Another theme of research concerns the building of the “European
Judicial Space”. It is a process that recently has acquired high
significance and presents different aspects: from the role played
by supranational courts, like the European Court of Justice or the
European Court of Human Rights, to the emerging significance of
coordinating structure like EuroJust. At present, a project aiming
at evaluating the conditions supporting the implementation of the
ECtHR ruling is taking off. The project is carried out inside a
larger project devoted to analysing the implementation of the
decisions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, carried out
by six Latin American universities - the "Instituto Tecnológico
Autónomo de México" ITAM; the "Escola de Direito de Sao Paulo,
Fundacao Getulio Vargas", Brasil; the" Universidad de los Andes",
Colombia; the "Universidad de Buenos Aires", Argentina; the
"Universidad Católica del Perú" in Lima and "Universidad Diego
Portales" of Santiago del Chile - as well as by the University of
Wisconsin‑Madison and the University of Texas at Austin. The
contribution of the University of Bologna will to single out the
elements supporting in Europe the implementation of Human Rights
rulings and to compare, from this point of view, the European and
the Latin American situations.
