Abstract

The declaration of fundamental and inalienable rights is a defining feature of modern constitutionalism. In its founding era, it was marked by a natural law approach, according to which the holder of these rights was an abstract subject, though it should be historically identified with the members of the upper classes. Quite on the contrary, the drafters of the Italian constitution of 1948 showed a major concern for the situatedness of the legal subject, and in so doing they "invented" (in the Latin sense) new forms of relationship between individuals, society and public authority.