This chapter aims to investigate the influence of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) on Italian labour law. From the examples that could have been taken into consideration, the chapter focuses on the longstanding issue of the prohibition on military personnel establishing and joining unions, which has characterised the Italian legal order for decades.

In order to shed light on this issue, this chapter adopts a chronological approach; first, it analyses some decisions of the Italian Constitutional Court of the 1980s and 1990s regarding provisions, adopted during the fascist period, that criminalise the collective exercise of freedom of expression, assembly and association, which has otherwise been recognised, since 1948, by the Italian Constitution. Second, the chapter examines the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on Article 11(2) ECHR, with reference to the state as an employer, between the 1970s and the first decade of this century. Third, it comes back to the decisions of the Italian Constitutional Court, adopted after the 2001 constitutional reform, which recognise the sub-constitutional status of international provisions, including the ECHR as interpreted by the ECtHR, in testing the constitutionality of national legislation. Fourth, the chapter returns to the case law of the ECtHR, with specific reference to the recognition of freedom of association with regard to the armed forces. Fift h, and last, it shows how the sub-constitutional status of the ECHR, as interpreted by the ECtHR, played a decisive role in the 2018 decision of the Constitutional Court recognising the freedom of military personnel to establish and join a union, which had been denied by the same Court in the 1990s, when international provisions did not enjoy such status. The chapter elaborates on such analysis in order to draw some conclusions about the influence of the ECHR on Italian labour law, and on the merit of the issue at stake.

1. THE COLLECTIVE DIMENSION IN THE ARMED FORCES AND THE DECISIONS OF THE ITALIAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

According to the Italian Constitution, ‘homeland defence is a sacred duty of the citizen’ (Article 52, para. 1). At the same time, ‘the military order shall conform to the democratic spirit of the Republic’ (Article 52, para. 3).