REPUBBLICA. – The res publica was originally understood, in a general sense, as the totality of the interests and activities or functions of the civic community; it later came to signify a particular historical form of government (Tacitus); it would be set in opposition to another type of order (the principate: Machiavelli), or alternatively be considered equivalent to the State (Bodin). For some time, even the Christian community was designated as a res publica. In modern times, it has been defined according to new orientations, inspired by the French Revolution, with a more or less pro-
found break from ancient forms of government, although these too were designated as r. (Athens, Sparta, Rome, Florence, Venice, etc.). Ordinarily, from the juridical-political point of view, the r. monarchy (v.), and various types are distinguished according to various criteria: unitary, regional, federal; parliamentary, presidential, mixed; with direct democracy or representative democracy; popular, progressive, etc.
At present (1950), r. exist 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 its own constitution); Colombia (1886, art. 1); South Korea (1948, art. 1; North Korea does not yet have its own constitution); 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 of 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 (corporate R., 1933, art. 5); Romania (1948, art. 1); S. Marino (1926, art. 1); S. 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 transition from monarchy to r. took place in a legalistic manner, with original arrangements.
Since political confidence in the Crown had been shaken by the events of the Fascist twenty-year period and of the war fought alongside, and in fact under the direction of, Nazi Germany, following the abdication of Vittorio Emanuele III and the proclamation of Umberto II, a special “institutional referendum” was held on 2 June 1946 (v. REFERENDUM). According to the ministerial report on the draft of d. l. lgt. 16 March 1946 no. 98 (which was connected with d. l. lgt. 25 June 1944 no. 151), once the concept had been accepted of having a procedure of direct democracy contribute to the resolution of the institutional question (rather than leaving the Constituent Assembly to decide the matter), extensive discussion had taken place concerning the timing and manner of the people’s direct intervention. The solution of combining it with the vote for the Constituent Assembly was finally adopted, in order to eliminate the inconvenience of further debates and dangerous interference. Indeed, the change in the form of government took place without any formal interruption of juridical continuity.
On 18 June 1946, contrary to the legally more rigorous interpretation of the attorney general, the Court of Cassation decided that “majority of the voting electors” (referred to in art. 2 of the aforementioned d. l. lgt., no. 98) was to be understood as the “majority of electors who had cast valid votes” (thus excluding invalid votes from the calculation, 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. The r. thus came into being, and the Constituent Assembly gave it precision of juridical content through the new Charter, which entered into force on 1 January 1948.
The Italian R. may be characterized as: 1) national, in the sense that the people who constitute it belong to a single nationality, apart from small minorities whose members are citizens on an equal footing with the others, while enjoying, within certain limits, particular rights protecting their distinctive 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 founded on
its entire legal order on a juridical foundation. That is to say, all state organs, including the supreme organs, are subject in their structure and functioning 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 freedom of citizens and the State’s own legal liability toward them (art. 28); 4) democratic, insofar as the people have a legal right to participate in the political life of the nation and are therefore not only a constituent element of it, but also a legally active element—indeed, even more, the actual holder of “sovereignty,” which they exercise 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 R. is therefore a combination of direct and representative democracy. It should be specified that the exercise of sovereignty does not in practice belong to the entire people, but only to those citizens who constitute the “electoral body,” that is, who enjoy the right to vote and who, under universal suffrage—as generally established in contemporary States—coincide with all those who have the full and free exercise of their rights (persons aged twenty-one; in some legal systems, also those aged eighteen). The principle of juridical equality of all citizens is therefore a democratic principle (art. 3), 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. Also proper to democracy (in close connection with the principle of equality) is the principle of quantitative evaluation, that is, the adoption of decisions in collegiate bodies (such as, for example, the chambers) by majority vote (maior pars, as opposed to the principle of the mellor sive sanior pars, which may be variously aristocratic depending on how the predominant part is determined). The calculation of the majority may, however, vary according to whether it is relative, absolute (half plus one), or variously qualified (for example, two-thirds of those voting or of the members of the collegiate body); and this is without prejudice to the adoption, in numerous countries, including Italy, of various systems of proportional representation or representation of minorities 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, by granting, withholding, or withdrawing confidence, Parliament conditions the activity of the government itself and helps to determine, while in any event continuously monitoring, the government’s political direction (also through the so-called oversight function, by means of questions, interpellations, motions, and inquiries). With the parliamentary system of government, traditional in Italy since 1848 and also widespread among contemporary States, it was intended to avoid the other type, presidential government, both in its Fascist form, in which the head of government held a position of clear pre-eminence over the other constitutional organs, determining the national political direction with exclusive responsibility toward the monarch, and in the form found in the United States of America, where the head of state is also head of government and the ministers are responsible only to him. It was also intended, however, to avoid the opposite extreme of the so-called “assembly government,” in which a single parliamentary assembly also exercises the governmental function—a situation that easily leads to tyranny and removes, or at least diminishes, those safeguards of freedom provided by the distinct organization of the organs of governmental power and those of legislative power; 6) a plurality of political parties, thereby remaining distinct from one-party systems, such as those formerly found under the Nazi and Fascist regimes and still existing in Russia, but in a sense sharply contrasting with that traditionally found in the Anglo-Saxon and Latin (Western) democracies. It is also distinct from the so-called “people’s democracies,” in which—as in Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc.—even though several parties are admitted, they are admitted only so long as they remain within the sphere of the prevailing socialist ideology, whereas opposition to the existing order, instead of being permitted, as in other countries, is regarded rather as a crime. Thus these “people’s” democratic r. essentially approach the Russian type; 7) social and based on solidarity, “founded on labor” (art. 1), in the conventional sense, that is, a State which, among its purposes, alongside the organization and defense of the State and the protection of individual rights, includes the protection of the intermediate “social formations” between the State and citizens (families, professional unions, and various bodies), as well as the promotion of the fulfillment of duties of “economic and social solidarity,” in addition to political solidarity (arts. 2, 29 ff., 35 ff.), among all classes. In this latter sense one may speak precisely of a State of solidarity, in contrast, on the one hand, to the liberal State (in economic matters) and, on the other, to the class State of the Russian type, in which political and economic monopoly is concentrated in a single class (Constitution of 1936, arts. 1, 3). The statement that the R. is “founded on labor” (art. 1) is intended, with a certain emphasis, to give labor political prominence 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 for it, especially for certain categories of workers (arts. 35 ff.). The intention is thus to adopt not a purely formal democracy (with the mere abstract guarantee of rights), but also a substantive one, tending to ensure a social life that satisfies, as far as possible, 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 R., Luigi Einaudi, the Constitution “affirms two solemn principles: to preserve in the present social structure everything, and only that, which guarantees the freedom of the human person against the omnipotence of the State and private oppression, and to guarantee to all, whatever the circumstances of their 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), by a provision that is politically debatable (given the unpredictable course of history), but legally unexceptionable (given the sovereign self-formation of the state order), the rule has been established according to which “the republican form may not be subject to constitutional revision” (art. 139). Nevertheless, one cannot a priori exclude an extraordinary legal revision, proceeding first to the repeal of art. 139 and, subsequently, 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 the Hon. Gronchi, in Resoconti dell'Assemblea costituente, p. 2721). If the rule were to be understood in the strictest sense as implying absolute immutability, it would follow that any organization of a monarchist nature was illegal, which is instead contrary to the regulations in force. Indeed, Law no. 1546 of 3 December 1947 criminally prosecutes “anyone who promotes a movement or constitutes a party directed toward the restoration of the monarchical institution, or facilitates its establishment,” but only when “violent means” are adopted for that purpose. In reality, monarchist organizations have been formed and operate, so to speak, officially as well, presenting 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 in theory) of a legal restoration of the monarchy.