MARIO GALIZIA

Paolo Barile, il liberalsocialismo e il costituzionalismo

N. 197

 

Summary — This essay is the text of a commemorative address given at the University of Florence on the 25 June in memory of Paolo Barile, professor of constitutional law and minister of relations with the parliament in the Ciampi administration, who died last year. In it, the author reconstructs the development of Barile’s research and of his civic commitments, recalling the tradition of " Justice and Freedom " and of liberal socialism — movements in which Barile participated in his youth in opposition to the dictatorship and which later provided a framework for his constitutional investigations. In the evolution of Barile’s thought, a central place must be given to the concept of constitution, viewed from the " material "perspective, as well as to the reconstructive role of his analysis of the relation between constitution and form of government. His numerous critical essays on the rights to freedom, and on the constitutional court in this connection, are extremely refined. Barile’s political and legal thought is connected with that of Piero Calamandrei, which provided an in-depth examination of the profiles of the various liberties up to the era of his well-known manifesto, with Gaetano Salvemini, " Non mollare ", written as a reaction to the tragic death of Matteotti. Paolo Barile took up and continued Calamandrei’s commitment, after the fall of Fascism, in favour of a renewed patriotic consciousness in Italy on the basis of the republican constitution.