ORDINI E COLLEGI PROFESSIONALI. – P. o. and p. c. (the former for professions requiring a doctoral degree for their practice, and the latter for those for which a diploma is sufficient) are public juridical persons mandatorily established by law. Enrollment in them, under the prescribed conditions, while constituting a subjective right, is at the same time a condition for the lawful practice of the profession.
The earliest such system dates, in the Italian State, to 1874, for lawyers and procurators; others followed, until at a certain point they were abolished by the Fascist trade-union regime, only to be re-established after its collapse: for lawyers and procurators, notaries, physicians and surgeons, veterinarians, chemists, pharmacists, midwives, engineers, architects, professionals in economics and commerce, actuaries, agronomists, accountants, surveyors, agricultural experts, and industrial experts.
With autonomous organization, they safeguard the dignity and freedom of professional practice and have as their characteristic functions: a) custody of the registers, that is, the compilation and preservation of lists of those qualified to engage in the aforementioned practice; b) «disciplinary» power over them, a power partly akin to that exercised by public administration over its own employees, although it cannot be identified with the latter, because those enrolled in the registers are independent professionals, not bound, as such, by any employment or subordinate-labor relationship. The sanctions may range from a simple warning to removal from the register. Another power is the power of taxation, through the authorized imposition of fees within their own sphere. They may also perform advisory and certification functions, designate representatives of the professional category, conciliate disputes between professionals and between them and their clients, and engage in cultural activities, etc.
Their internal structure and operation are largely common to all, with certain distinctions in the case of some of them, e.g., those of notaries with regard to disciplinary proceedings, given the public nature of their profession; those of lawyers and procurators (now unified), established by judicial districts rather than, as is usually the case, by provinces; and those of the health professions, which are distinct from one another but linked federally. At the Ministry of Grace and Justice there is a central commission (for lawyers and procurators), the Higher Forensic Council, and for health professionals a Commission at the High Commission for Hygiene and Public Health. Representation of orders and colleges is provided, among other places, on the committees for the registers of the judges’ «technical consultants».
A special system, probably soon to be revised, applies to the registers and discipline of journalists (ordinarily bound by an employment contract). V. PROFESSIONI INTELLETTUALI.