Abstract

This essay aims to reflect about the campaign of judicial prosecution that involved thousands of partisans during the first republican decade through the perspective of the lawyers who organized the trial defenses. Focusing on the analysis of the documents of the National Committee of Democratic Solidarity, the organization that mainly guaranteed legal, political and moral assistance to the partisans under investigation, the article dwells on the reconstruction of the main aspects of the «cause lawyering» during that period. Under this prospect, the research suggests a peculiar example of how law has been used not only to defend the accused partisans, but also as a means of the political struggle. The defenses activated throughout the judicial offensive that put in the dock thousands of partisans for acts linked to the civil war are particularly indicative not only to investigate the trends of the transitional justice and the elements of continuity of the State between war and postwar period, but also to recognize the ideological orientation assumed by the country during the first years of the Cold War.