La mancata emanazione nell’Italia repubblicana di una legge “organica” sulla libertà religiosa (il confronto col caso spagnolo)

Abstract

A missed target of the Republican Italy is the adoption of an "organic" law on religious freedom. A lack determined in spite of the presence of intemal and extemal stimuli ( of cultural, poli ti cal and legal nature) that might have led to a different outcome: among the first, in particular, the chance to mark a discontinuity with the previous regime and to replace the "general" Legge sui Cu/ti ammessi (1929), conflicting with the Charta of 1948 on multiple fronts; regarding the latter, the suggestions (more or less compelling) occurred over time from Spain and Portugal, Countries with an history of relations between law, politics and religion in many respects parallel to the Italian one. And in this regard, it is prominent the inspiration given by the Spanish experience, both as earlier than the Portuguese, and because of the extraordinary speed and the unanimous agreement that characterise the process of adoption of the Ley Organica de Libertad Religiosa, a couple ofyears from the first "e lec iones democráticas" of PostFrancoism, and the promulgation ofConstitution of 1978. This essay intends to examine the political and legal factors behind this latter outcome, and to confront them with those much older found in ltaly in the aftermath ofthe fall ofFascism: with the immediate aim ofhighlighting the differences between the two situations and evaluating their weight respecting to the unsuccessful developments ofthe Italian experience; and the final goal of derive, starting from this comparison, the prominent resistance factors which have affected negatively this experience.