Constitution of the Italian Republic

The 1947 postwar charter pairing a balanced parliament with a rich rights catalogue.

Overview

Adopted by the Constituent Assembly in December 1947 after a referendum abolished the monarchy, the Italian Constitution came into force January 1, 1948. It built a parliamentary republic designed against both fascist concentration of power and instability, with a bicameral parliament elected by proportional representation, a mostly ceremonial president, and an autonomous Constitutional Court operating since 1956. Its first part lists inviolable rights and duties, including labor rights, and Article 11 renounces war. It blends liberal, socialist, and Catholic constitutional thought, and its rigidity has kept the text largely intact through decades of political turnover.