Judicial role in the protection of social rights

The essay addresses, in a comparative perspective, the ways in which the last economic crisis has been reflected in the treatment of the social rights system of some western States. The examination of the experiences, with special reference to the role of jurisprudence, of the legal systems considered shows that each State has responded to the effects of the crisis, in terms of social rights, according to its national characteristics. For example, where there is a strong conflict between local authorities and the State, the issue of social rights has been crossed with territorial issues. The peculiarities derived from the different methods of judgment of the constitutional and supreme courts also emerge clearly