Building Judicial Authority: A Comparison Between the Italian Constitutional Court and the German Federal Constitutional Court

This paper examines the foundations of the Italian Constitutional Court’s authority by comparing it with that of the German Federal Constitutional Court. In comparison to the German Court, la Corte had to build its authority on a particularly weak legal basis. However, it succeeded in developing a dynamic of “power in weakness” which explains important features of the Italian Constitutional Court: its exceptionally cooperative relationship with the ordinary courts, its terse style of reasoning, its deliberate low profile in public opinion, its activist interaction with the legislature, and its tactical dialogue with the EU Court of Justice.