The Dissenting Opinion : selected Essays

The volume reflects on an instrument considered – whether right or wrong – extraneous to the Italian legal tradition: the dissenting opinion. It collects a selection of essays from prominent professors and judges of prestigious Constitutional, Supranational and International Courts. The contributions present pros and cons of the dissent’s use, in a comparative perspective, pointing out elements useful to assess whether the time is ripe for providing the Italian Constitutional Court with this instrument. Beyond single advantages and risks of the dissenting opinion, it is clear that different theories of the Constitution and different theories of the role of the Constitutional Court hide behind the choice to adopt or not adopt this instrument. Anyway, it is worth noting that the use of the dissent would be a means to let pluralism into the Court’s argumentation, so that those different theories might emerge.