Abstract

During the early stages of the Pandemic, a minor Alpine Region, the Valle d’Aosta, has introduced a local legislation for the containment and control of the pandemic emergency, in derogation to the d.P.C.M. system introduced by National Government. The paper moves from Corte cost. 37/2021, which declares null and void the Valle d’Aosta Act, to propose an interpretation of the innovative Executive Orders (d.P.C.M.) issued by central Government to manage the pandemic crisis, in terms of an autonomous system of acts, which resembles some features of the XVIII th Century. Administrative State. Compares the legal system of the 1848 Piedmontese and then Italian Constitution to the system of the Constitutional State established in 1948. Offers some considerations about the differences between «Emergency» and «Exception» with regard to the XX th Century. Staatsrecht’s notions of Ausnahme- und Notzustand. And finally remarks how thin the borders may be between State of Emergency and State of Exception.