Abstract

With a much discussed judgment the Italian Constitutional Court held that the Italian law 40/2004 concerning medically assisted procreation violates fundamental rights where by banning Embryo Transfer techniques. The judgment was subject to deep criticism due to, among others, the fact that the Constitutional Court doesn't take in any account Strasbourg case-law on the issue, even if during the proceedings, the Court herself had required a reformulation of the point after a Strasbourg judgment on similar issues. This note argues that, even if the Italian Constitutional Court has adopted a highly problematic construction of the relationship between her activities and Strasbourg judgments based on the acceptance of a duty of conformative interpretation, in the present judgment there was no need to use European yardsticks to protect those rights clearly elaborated in the Italian Constitutional Charter.