Abstract

The famous judgment 200 delivered by the Italian Constitutional Court in 2006 includes pardon as part of the finality that punishment should have according to the Italian Constitution. As a result, with a secular approach based on a common constitutional parameter (art. 27, par. 3), all types of clemency act have been put into the same group. Although mercy, pardon and atypical amnesty do not overlap with one another, they are certainly very similar from a legal, institutional and now constitutional standpoint. However, according to the author, in order to ensure that future clemency acts are interpreted in the same way, Art. 79 of the Italian Constitution should be amended. More specifically, the author proposes that the review of amnesty and pardon be both "ex ante" and "ex post". "Ex ante" review should be carried out by the President of the Republic and "ex post" review by the Constitutional Court.