The 80th anniversary of the Republic: the turning point and new rights

The third is the right to strike. The liberal state had often repressed social conflict, considering it a threat to public order. The Constitution, on the other hand, recognises the strike as a right, albeit regulated by law. It is a historic break: the conflict between workers and companies enters into the democratic order and becomes not only a legitimate, but a characterising element of it. Here too, however, the path to implementation was slow and today, amidst the precariousness and fragmentation of work, the right to strike appears less incisive than the Constituents had intended.

The fourth symbolic right of the new Republic is that of association in political parties, enshrined in Article 49. A right that is not by chance placed between the two parts of the Constitution, which recognises that the parties together have the task of integrating citizens and synthesising the various interests present in society. A centrality in Italian democracy that appears, however, deeply worn out: the crisis of representation, the personalisation of politics and abstentionism have largely emptied the constitutional idea of the party as a place of participation and collective formation of the political will.

Finally, the vote for women and their access to public office. On 2 June 1946, women voted for the first time in a national consultation and participated, in small numbers but with far from insignificant results, in the Constituent Assembly. The Republic was born, therefore, along with the recognition of women's full citizenship. Article 51 then sanctions access to public offices and elected positions 'in conditions of equality'. But even this right has been very slow to be implemented, in laws and in society. For decades, the presence of women in institutions remained marginal: for example, only in 1965 did eight women enter the judiciary, after years of obtuse prejudice. And even today, the constitutional principle continues to come up against profound cultural and social obstacles.

Of course, eighty years have not passed in vain; health and education have increased considerably, employment protections have strengthened, the spaces for political participation have expanded and, to cite just one figure, some 57% of ordinary magistrates are women. The most modern feature of the 1948 Constitution remains: not a catalogue of definitively acquired rights, but a very ambitious project always exposed to the risk of incompleteness and backwardness.