LAW AND SOCIAL CHANGE: RIGHT TO A NAME, PERSONAL IDENTITY AND PRIVATE LIFE IN CONTEXT

Abstract

The name is the key to identify a single individual and to link a person to her family, as well as the primary interface in the relationship between a person and the community he or she lives in. This study claims that private life and private autonomy are becoming interpretative arguments and vehicles to ensure that law would be able to follow – and sometimes to chase – social changes in personal and family life, in finding new rules to regulate the relationship between the individual, the family and public authorities or between a private individual and the community she interfaces with.1 Judicial interpretative activity often reveals legislative shortcomings. In particular, the judiciary goes ahead with creative interpretation of implicit principles and moderately innovative interpretations of “old” pieces of legislation. Over the past few decades social changes due to: - the free movement of people in and around Europe (transborder dimension); - the metamorphosis of family forms and relations; have generated many issues, triggering public and state intervention regarding private choices of name, surname and personal identity of individuals.