Summing it all up

During this week you should have learned how, for a democratic system, it is fundamental that the Constitution sets the division of powers amongst all the different public branches, and creates a system of checks and balances.

This division, and the differences in how the system of checks and balances have been designed, is typical of each and every country. In other words, what you should have learned is that, despite the principles of separation of powers and balance of powers being a common feature for all democratic systems, the way these principles are realized can be different.

At this point, you also learned about the division of powers in Italy, where the Italian Republic is a parliamentary system in which the legislative power is exercised by the parliament, the executive power by a government appointed on the basis of a parliamentary majority, and the judicial power is exercised by the judges independently.

To guarantee the system, there exists two fundamental institutions provided by the Italian Constitution: (I) the Head of State; (II) the Constitutional Court.

In the following weeks, you can further understand the complexity of the Italian legal system by approaching each public institution separately.