REPUBLIC. - The res publica originally, and in a generic sense, was understood as the complex of interests and activities or functions of the citizen community; it later came to signify a particular historical form of government (Tacitus); it would be contrasted with another type of order (the principate: Machiavelli) or else considered as equivalent to State (Bodin). As res publica there was designated, for some time, even the Christian community. In modern times it is defined according to new orientations, inspired by the French Revolution, with a more or less profound detachment from ancient orders, though these too are designated as r. (Athens, Sparta, Rome, Florence, Venice, etc.). Usually, from the juridical-political point of view, the r. is now contrasted with monarchy (v.), and various types are distinguished, from various standpoints: unitary, regional, federal; parliamentary, presidential, mixed; with direct democracy or with representative democracy; popular, progressive, etc.
At present (1950) there are r. in: Albania (Constitution of 1946, art. 2); Andorra (1866, art. 2 ff.); Argentina (1949, art. 1); Austria (1920, art. 2; there is not yet a new constitution after its restoration); Bolivia (1945, art. 1); Brazil (1946, art. 1); Chile (1925, art. 1); China (1947, art. 1; communist China does not yet have a constitution of its own); Colombia (1886, art. 1); South Korea (1948, art. 1; North Korea does not yet have a constitution of its own); Costa Rica (1871, art. 1); Cuba (1940, art. 1); Dominican R. (1942, art. 2); Ecuador (1946, art. 2); Philippines (1925, art. 1); Finland (1919, art. 1); France (1946, art. 1); Germany (western, 20 May 1949: "German Federal R."; and eastern, 19 March 1949: "German Democratic R."); Guatemala (1945, art. 1); Haiti (1946, art. 1); Honduras (1936, art. 86); India (1949); Indonesia (Provisional Constitution, 1949, art. 1); Ireland (1937, art. 5; Act of 1948); Iceland (1944, art. 1); Israel (draft 1948); Italy (1948, art. 1); Yugoslavia (1946, art. 1); Lebanon (1926, art. 4); Liberia (1947, art. 1); Mexico (1917, art. 40); Mongolia (1940, art. 1); Nicaragua (1948, art. 5); Panama (1946, art. 1); Paraguay (1940, art. 1); Peru (1933, art. 1); Poland (1947, art. 1); Portugal (corporative R., 1933, art. 5); Romania (1948, art. 1); San Marino (1926, art. 1); San Salvador (1886-1945, art. 4); Syria (1930, art. 3); Switzerland (1874, art. 1); United States of North America (1787); Turkey (1945, art. 1); Ukraine (1937, art. 1); Union of Soviet Socialist R. (1936, art. 1); Hungary (1949, art. 1); Uruguay (1934, art. 72); Venezuela (1936-47).
In Italy the passage from monarchy to r. came about in a legalistic manner, with originality of provisions.
Political confidence in the Crown had vanished, owing to the events of the Fascist twenty years and of the war alongside, and in fact subordinately to, Nazi Germany; after the abdication of Victor Emmanuel III and the proclamation of Umberto II, on 2 June 1946 a special "institutional referendum" was held (v. REFERENDUM). According to the ministerial report on the draft of the d. l. lgt. of 16 March 1946 no. 98 (which links back to the d. l. lgt. of 25 June 1944 no. 151), once the concept had been accepted of having a procedure of direct democracy contribute to the solution of the institutional question (rather than leaving the Constituent Assembly as arbiter in the matter), there had been lengthy discussion on the timing and the modalities of the direct intervention of the people. Finally the solution of combining it with the vote for the Constituent Assembly was adopted, in order to eliminate the inconvenience of further debates and dangerous interferences. And indeed, the change of the form of government came about without any break in formal juridical continuity.
On 18 June 1946, going against the juridically more rigorous interpretation of the attorney general, the Court of Cassation decided that by "majority of the electors voting" (referred to in art. 2 of the cited d. l. lgt. no. 98) there should be understood the "majority of the electors who have cast valid votes" (thus excluding from the count the null votes, amounting to 1,498,156) and recorded that the "total valid votes" had been 12,717,923 in favor of the r. and 10,719,284 in favor of the monarchy. In this way the r. was born, to which the Constituent Assembly gave precision of juridical content with the new Charter that entered into force on 1 Jan. 1948.
The Italian R. can be qualified as: 1) national, in the sense that the people that constitutes it belongs to a single nationality except for small minorities whose members are citizens on an equal footing with the others, albeit with the enjoyment, within certain limits, of particular rights protecting their characteristics, especially linguistic ones (art. 6); 2) unitary, but with regional autonomies (v. REGIONS); 3) constitutional, in the specific and conventional sense of a State that rests its entire legal order on a juridical basis. That is to say, all state organs, including the supreme ones in their structure and functioning, are subject to constitutional law ("sub lege rex" and not "sub rege lex"), with the consequent, on the one hand, "division" and "rationalization" of the "powers," and on the other, protection of the citizens' freedom and the legal responsibility toward them of the State itself (art. 28); 4) democratic, inasmuch as the people participates by right in the political life of the nation, and is therefore not only a constitutive element of it, but also a juridically active element, indeed, even more, the very holder of "sovereignty," which it exercises in the forms and within the limits of the Constitution (art. 1), that is: 1) directly through the institution of the "referendum," and 2) indirectly through the election of the members of the political-legislative organs: Chamber of Deputies and Senate (v. DEMOCRAZIA). Accordingly the Italian R. is a combination of direct democracy and representative democracy. It should be specified that the exercise of sovereignty does not in concrete terms belong to the whole people, but only to those citizens who make up the "electoral body," that is, who enjoy the active right to vote and who coincide, under a regime of universal suffrage (as is generally that of contemporary States), with all those who have the full and free exercise of their rights (those aged twenty-one; in some legal systems also those aged eighteen). The democratic principle is therefore that of the juridical equality of all citizens (art. 3), so that democratic government is not a government of castes or closed bodies, but a government open to the free political circulation of all classes and categories and of the individuals within them. Also proper to democracy (in close connection with that of equality) is the principle of quantitative assessment, that is, of decisions adopted, in collegial organs (as, for example, the chambers), by majority of votes (maior pars, as opposed to the principle of the melior sive sanior pars, which can be variously aristocratic depending on the determination of the prevailing part). The calculation of the majority can, moreover, vary according to whether it is relative, absolute (half plus one) or variously qualified (for example, two thirds of the voters or of the members of the college), and without prejudice also to the adoption, in numerous countries (including Italy), of various systems of proportional or minority representation in elections; 5) parliamentary, in the sense that the government formally appointed by the president of the r. must have the confidence of the chambers (arts. 92, 94). In this way the parliament, by granting, denying or revoking confidence, conditions the activity of the government itself, and contributes to determining and in any case continuously controls the government's political direction (also through the so-called inspectorial function, with questions, interpellations, motions, inquiries). With the system of parliamentary government, traditional in Italy since 1848 and also very widespread in contemporary States, it was intended to avoid the other type of presidential government, whether in the fascist form in which the head of government had a position of clear pre-eminence in comparison with the other constitutional organs, determining the national political direction with exclusive responsibility toward the monarch, or 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. It was intended, however, to avoid also the other extreme of the so-called "assembly government," in which a single parliamentary assembly also exercises the governmental function, which easily leads to a tyranny and removes or at least diminishes those safeguards of liberty that are given by the distinct organization of the organs of governmental power from those of legislative power; 6) with a plurality of political parties, thus remaining differentiated from single-party systems, as in the past in the Nazi and fascist regimes and still today in Russia, but in a sense sharply contrasting with the traditional one in the Anglo-Saxon and Latin (Western) democracies. And differentiated also from the so-called "people's democracies," in which (as in Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc.), although several parties are admitted, they are so only if they remain within the sphere of the prevailing socialist ideology, while opposition to the existing order, although permitted, as in the other countries, is considered rather a crime. So that such "people's" democratic r. essentially approach the Russian type; 7) social and of solidarity, "founded on labor" (art. 1), in a conventional sense, that is, of a State that places among its ends, besides those of its organization and defense and of the protection of individual rights, also those of the protection of the "social formations" intermediate between State and citizens (families, professional unions, various bodies) and of the promotion of the fulfillment of duties of "economic and social solidarity," as well as political (arts. 2, 29 ff., 35 ff.), among all classes. In this latter sense one can speak precisely of a solidarity State, as opposed on the one hand to the liberal State (in economics) and on the other to the class State of the Russian type, in which there is a political-economic monopoly concentrated in a single class (Constitution of 1936, arts. 1, 3). The statement, moreover, that the R. is "founded on labor" (art. 1) is intended to give, with a certain emphasis, political prominence to labor as the foundation of collective life, labor being understood in the broad sense of every activity and function that "contributes to the material and spiritual progress of society" (art. 4), with particular constitutional protection of it, especially for certain categories of workers (art. 35 ff.). The intention is thus to adopt not a purely formal democracy (with the mere abstract guarantee of rights), but also a substantial one, tending, that is, to ensure a social life that satisfies, as far as possible, the needs and legitimate aspirations of citizens in respect for the natural rights of the human personality. According to the authoritative interpretation of the president of the R., Luigi Einaudi, the Constitution "affirms two solemn principles: to preserve in the present social structure all that and only that which is a guarantee of the freedom of the human person against the omnipotence of the State and private overbearing, and to guarantee to all, whatever the accidents of birth, the greatest possible equality at the starting points" (message to the Chambers of 12 May 1948).
Like other republican constitutions (e.g., the French one, art. 87), with a provision that is politically debatable (given the unforeseeable course of history) but juridically unobjectionable (given the sovereign self-formation of the state legal order), the rule is laid down according to which "the republican form cannot be the object of constitutional revision" (art. 139). Nevertheless, an extraordinary legal revision cannot be ruled out a priori, proceeding first to the repeal of art. 139 and second to the calling of a new "referendum," as was also envisaged during the debate on the subject in the Constituent Assembly (cf. the statement of Hon. Gronchi, in Resoconti dell'Assemblea costituente, p. 2721). If the norm were to be understood in the strictest sense of an absolute immutability, the consequence would have to be the illegality of any monarchical party organization, which is instead in conflict with the norms in force. In fact, the law of Dec. 3, 1947 no. 1546 criminally prosecutes "anyone who promotes a movement or constitutes a party directed to the restoration of the monarchical institution or facilitates its constitution," but only when "violent means" are adopted for that purpose. In reality, monarchical organizations have been constituted and operate, so to speak, even officially, presenting among other things their own candidates in political elections and having their own representatives in Parliament. This confirms the legality, in itself, of monarchical movements and the consequent lawfulness and possibility (at least theoretical) of a legal restoration of the monarchy.