ACCUSED AND DEFENDANT. – The term *reo* in the *Code of Canon Law* is sometimes (though in truth rarely) used to mean a person convicted or confessed of a crime (e.g., cann. 2233, 2288). More frequently, the term *reus* has the procedural meaning of *reus conventus*, i.e., the defendant in a criminal or contentious trial. However, even under this procedural meaning (which is the precise one), the term can have a twofold significance: a purely formal one and a more substantial one.
From a purely formal point of view, *reus* or *reus conventus* is the person who is summoned to trial (whether contentious or criminal) as a party, at the instance of the other party who initiated the lawsuit. This is the meaning of the term *reus* in cann. 1670 § 2 and 1874 § 2, and especially in can. 1559 § 3, where the ancient rule is sanctioned: *actor sequitur forum rei*.
In principle, therefore, the party who initiates a case must summon the other party in the latter’s forum. Still from this purely formal point of view, the party against whom an appeal is lodged is sometimes considered the *reus conventus*, even if in reality it was the one who took the initiative of the action. Indeed, in the formulas of the Sacred Roman Rota one still reads: *actor seu appellans, conventus seu appellatus*. This, however, is not scientifically precise, because the plaintiff does not cease to be the plaintiff even if, having won in the first instance, he becomes the appellee in the appellate stage.
From a merely formal standpoint, the status of defendant is chiefly important for jurisdictional purposes, whether for territorial jurisdiction (relative competence) or for jurisdiction *ratione dignitatis personarum* (absolute and indefeasible competence). The former is governed by can. 1561, so that in principle the *reo* must be summoned before the court of his domicile or quasi-domicile. If the *reo* has several forums, the choice is left to the plaintiff (can. 1559 § 3). Besides the general forum constituted by domicile or quasi-domicile (cann. 1561), there are concurrent special forums (the forum of the *peregrinus in urbe*, cann. 1562; the *forum rei sitae*, cann. 1564; the *forum contractus*, cann. 1565), and then there are necessary forums, which exclude the general forum of domicile and quasi-domicile, not in an absolute sense but always in a relative one, so that the failure to raise an exception cures the incompetence. Jurisdiction based on the dignity of the person of the *reo* is instead laid down in can. 1557 (v. COMPETENZA).
Still from the formal aspect, the provision of can. 1690 is very important, since by prohibiting the reconvention of a reconvention, it evidently considers the purely formal status of the party who took the initiative of the lawsuit (plaintiff) and of the one who suffered it (defendant).
But the term *reus conventus* also—and above all—has a substantial meaning: it denotes the defendant against whom or with respect to whom the application of a concrete legal provision is sought. Generally, this defendant in the substantial sense is also the one who did not take the initiative of the lawsuit and who was summoned to court at the plaintiff’s instance; but sometimes (and not infrequently) in this substantial sense even the party who took the initiative of the lawsuit may become a defendant: a defendant in the substantial exception or in the counterclaim or even in the incidental ascertainment sought by the other party (i.e., by the defendant in the truly formal sense). This substantial meaning of the term *reus* is found in can. 1748 (*actor non probante reus absolvitur*), where evidently the words *actor* and *reus* have a substantial meaning. The *reo* (in the purely formal sense) who fails to prove his exception (in the substantial sense) or the counterclaim or the incidental ascertainment he has sought is defeated in the exception, the counterclaim, and the ascertainment precisely because in substance he is to be regarded as the plaintiff.
It is often said that in a lawsuit the status of defendant is more fundamental than that of plaintiff, and that it is incumbent upon the plaintiff to speak first, to reveal his position first, to present his arguments first, and
On 18 June 1946, against the legally most rigorous interpretation of the Procurator General, the Court of Cassation ruled that by “majority of the electors voting” (as referred to in art. 2 of legislative decree no. 1 of 1946) was to be understood the “majority of electors who cast valid votes” (thus excluding from the calculation the null votes, which amounted to 1,498,136), and certified that the “total valid votes” were 12,717,923 in favour of the republic and 10,719,284 in favour of the monarchy. Thus the republic was born, and the Constituent Assembly gave it precise juridical content with the new Charter that entered into force on 1 January 1948.
The Italian Republic may be characterised as: 1) national, in the sense that the people constituting it belongs to a single nationality, save for small minorities whose members are full citizens like the others, albeit within certain limits enjoying special rights to safeguard their characteristics, especially linguistic ones (art. 6); 2) unitary, but with regional autonomies (v. REGIONI); 3) constitutional, in the specific and conventional sense of a State whose entire legal order is founded upon a constitutional basis. That is to say, all state organs, including the supreme ones by virtue of their structure and functioning, are subject to constitutional law (“sub leges rex” and not “sub reges lex”), with the consequent, on the one hand, “division” and “rationalisation” of “powers”, and on the other, protection of the citizens’ freedom and the State’s legal responsibility towards them (art. 28); 4) democratic, inasmuch as the people participates by right in the political life of the nation and is therefore not only a constituent element but also a juridically active one, indeed more precisely the holder of “sovereignty”, which it exercises in the forms and within the limits of the Constitution (art. 1), namely: 1) directly through the institution of the “referendum”, and 2) indirectly through the election of the members of the political-legislative organs: the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate (v. DEMOCRAZIA). The Italian Republic is therefore a combination of direct and representative democracy. It must be clarified that the exercise of sovereignty does not in concreto belong to the entire people, but only to those citizens who form the “electorate”, i.e. those who enjoy active electoral rights and who, under a system of universal suffrage (as is generally the case in contemporary States), coincide with all those who have full and free exercise of their rights (twenty-one-year-olds; in some systems also eighteen-year-olds). The principle of the juridical equality of all citizens (art. 3) is therefore a democratic one, so that democratic government is not government by castes or closed bodies, but government open to the free political circulation of all classes and categories and of individuals within them. Another principle proper to democracy (in close connection with that of equality) is that of quantitative evaluation, namely of decisions adopted in collegial organs (such as, for example, the Chambers) by majority vote (maior pars, as opposed to the principle of melior sive sanior pars, which can be variously aristocratic depending on the determination of the prevailing part). The calculation of the majority can however vary according to whether it is relative, absolute (half plus one) or variously qualified (e.g. two-thirds of those voting or of the members of the body), and subject also to the adoption, in many countries (including Italy), of various systems of proportional representation or of minority representation in elections; 5) parliamentary, in the sense that the parliamentary government appointed by the President of the Republic must have the confidence of the Chambers (arts. 92, 94). In this way, by granting, denying or revoking confidence, Parliament conditions the government’s activity and contributes to determining and at any rate continuously controlling the government’s political direction (also through the so-called oversight function, with questions, interpellations, motions and inquiries). With the parliamentary system, traditional in Italy since 1848 and also widespread in contemporary States, it was sought to avoid the other type of presidential government, both in the fascist form, in which the head of government held a position of clear pre-eminence over the other constitutional organs, determining national political direction with exclusive responsibility towards the monarch, and in the form of the United States of America, in which the head of State is also head of government and the ministers are responsible only to him. Yet it was also sought to avoid the other extreme of the so-called “assembly government”, in which a single parliamentary assembly also exercises the governmental function, which easily leads to tyranny and removes or at least diminishes those safeguards of freedom provided by the distinct organisation of the organs of governmental power from those of legislative power; 6) pluralist in terms of political parties, thus differing from systems with a single party, as in the past in Nazi and Fascist regimes and still in Russia, but in clear contrast to the traditional model in Anglo-Saxon and Latin (Western) democracies. It also differs from the so-called “people’s democracies”, in which (as in Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc.), even if multiple parties are permitted, they are only so if they remain within the framework of the prevailing socialist ideology, whereas opposition to the existing order, if permitted as in other countries, is rather considered a crime. Thus such “people’s” democratic republics essentially approximate the Russian model; 7) social and solidaristic, “founded on labour” (art. 1), in the conventional sense of a State that, among its aims, besides those of its own organisation and defence and the protection of individual rights, also includes the protection of the “intermediate social formations” between State and citizens (families, professional unions, various bodies) and the promotion of the fulfilment of duties of “economic and social solidarity”, as well as political ones (arts. 2, 29 et seq., 35 et seq.), among all classes. In this latter sense one may speak precisely of a solidaristic State, in contrast on the one hand to the liberal State (in economic terms) and on the other to the class-based State of the Russian type, in which there is a centralised political-economic monopoly in a single class (Constitution of 1936, arts. 1, 3). The statement that the Republic is “founded on labour” (art. 1) is intended, with a certain emphasis, to give political prominence to labour as the foundation of collective life, understood in a broad sense as any activity and function that “contributes to the material and spiritual progress of society” (art. 4), with particular constitutional protection, especially for certain categories of workers (arts. 35 et seq.). The aim is thus not to adopt a purely formal democracy (with the mere abstract guarantee of rights), but a substantive one, seeking to ensure a social life that, as far as possible, satisfies the needs and legitimate aspirations of citizens while respecting the natural rights of the human person. According to the authoritative interpretation of the President of the Republic, Luigi Einaudi, the Constitution “affirms two solemn principles: to preserve in the present social structure all and only that which guarantees the freedom of the human person against the omnipotence of the State and private arrogance, and to guarantee to all, whatever their circumstances at birth, the greatest possible equality in terms of starting points” (message to the Chambers of 12 May 1948).
In a manner similar to other republican charters (e.g., the French one, art. 87), with a politically debatable provision (given the unpredictable turns of history), but legally unimpeachable (given the sovereign self-formation of the state order), the principle is established that “the republican form cannot be the object of constitutional revision” (art. 139). However, an extraordinary legal revision cannot be ruled out a priori, by proceeding first to the repeal of art. 139 and then to the calling of a new referendum, as was also envisaged during the debate on the subject in the Constituent Assembly (cf. the statement by Hon. Gronchi, in *Resoconti dell’Assemblea costituente*, p. 2721). If the norm were to be understood in the strictest sense of absolute immutability, it would follow as a consequence the illegality of any monarchist party organization, which is instead in contrast with the existing norms. Indeed, the law of 3 Dec. 1947 no. 1546 penalizes anyone who promotes a movement or constitutes a party directed at the restoration of the monarchical institution or facilitates its establishment, but only when “violent means” are adopted for this purpose. In reality, monarchist organizations have been formed and operate, so to speak, officially, even putting forward their own candidates in political elections and having their own representatives in Parliament. This confirms the legality, in itself, of monarchist movements and the consequent lawfulness and possibility (at least theoretical) of a legal restoration of the monarchy.