Abstract

Through the analysis of some writings by Costantino Mortati and Gustavo Zagrebelsky, this essay aims to provide a definition of the «identity» – considered as the «constitutive essence» – of the Republican Constitution. More specifically, in the first part of the essay, moving from the German binomial Wertordnung-Rahmenordnung, we will ascribe, as a scientific hypothesis, the paradigm of «constitution» that Mortati and Zagrebelsky elaborate, respectively, to the first and second theoretical model of «constitution» outlined by German doctrine. Once we have verified that the two theories are only partially attributable to the German dichotomy, we will highlight the explicative insufficiency of the two models, insofar as they accord pre-eminent value only to one of the two specific prerogatives of the democratic Constitution: the function of «political direction» (indirizzo politico), with reference to Mortati, the function of «guaranteeing pluralism», with reference to Zagrebelsky. Considering this, in the last part of the essay, we will endorse the idea of a necessary composition of the two paradigms, based on a more convincing line of interpretation of the democratic Constitution which lies into Maurizio Fioravanti’s thought.