¹ For the sake of uniformity, throughout the present article I will use the current denomination of the Court even when I refer to pre-2009 cases and situations, whereas EU law is used to refer to Union law in general.Google Scholar

² Like in the seminal Costa (judgment 7. March 1964, no. 14), Frontini (judgment 17. Decembrer 1973, no. 183) and Granital (judgment 8. June 1984, no. 170) cases. All judgments and orders of the ICC are available at http://www.cortecostituzionale.it/actionPronuncia.do. A selection of recent cases (since 2006) translated into English is available at http://www.cortecostituzionale.it/ActionPagina_1260.do.Google Scholar

³ For an insightful overview on hidden dialogue, see Martinico, Giuseppe, Judging in the Multilevel Legal Order: Exploring the Techniques of ‘Hidden Dialogue,' 21 K.L.J. 257 (2010).Google Scholar

⁴ Moving from the functions demanded of Constitutional Courts in the process of European legal integration as elaborated by Monica Claes and Bruno De Witte, one may summarize the overall approach of the ICC in the following terms: extensive facilitation of the legal integration between Community law and domestic law, procedural resistance against a shift of ultimate judicial authority in internal law, and a minor direct contribution to the development of a common constitutional heritage for Europe. Monica Claes and Bruno De Witte, The Role of National Constitutional Courts in the European Legal Space, in The Role of Constitutional Courts in Multilevel Governance 77, 81 (Patricia Popelier, Armen Mazmanyan & Werner Vandenbruwaene eds., 2013).Google Scholar

⁵ Article 11 reads, “Italy agrees, on conditions of equality with other States, to the limitations of sovereignty that may be necessary to a world order ensuring peace and justice among the Nations. Italy promotes and encourages international organisations furthering such ends.”Google Scholar

⁶ Judgment No. 170/1984 at para. 4.Google Scholar

⁷ Antonio La Pergola and Patrick Del Duca, Community Law, International Law and the Italian Constitution, 79 Am. J. Int'l L. 598, 614, 615 (1985) (emphasis added). The doctrinal roots of a similar judicial strategy must be seen in the pluralist theory of Santi Romano, whose seminal oeuvre L'ordinamento giuridico 146 (1951, 1st ed. 1918) is devoted, among others objectives, to challenging the idea that relationships between legal orders are entirely shaped by the principle of exclusivity. In this light, coordination occurs as the outcome of the acceptance by one legal order of the rules adopted by another, that are acknowledged by the former not as a mere fact but in their proper legal relevance.Google Scholar

⁸ La Pergola and Del Duca, supra note 7, at 615.Google Scholar

⁹ Order 28. July 1976, No. 206.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Dani, Marco, Tracking Judicial Dialogue—The Scope for Preliminary Rulings From the Italian Constitutional Court, 16 Maastricht J. Eur. & Comp. L. 149, 154 (2009).Google Scholar

¹¹ Sorrentino, Federico, Svolta della Corte sul rinvio pregiudiziale: le decisioni 102 e 103 del 2008, in 52 Giurisprudenza Costituzionale 1288, 1289 (2008).Google Scholar

¹² Cannizzaro, Enzo, Rinvio pregiudiziale e Corti costituzionali nazionali, in Scritti in onore di Giuseppe Tesauro, 819, 822 (2d vol. 2014). On a similar dialectic between primacy and supremacy, see Martinico, Giuseppe & Fontanelli, Federico, Between Procedural Impermeability and Constitutional Openness: The Italian Constitutional Court and Preliminary References to the European Court of Justice, 16 Eur. L. J. 345, 349 (2010).Google Scholar

¹³ In so doing, the ICC took into account the need to integrate in the same theoretical setting what Rideau, Joël, Les garanties juridictionnelles des droits fondamentaux dans l'Union Européenne, in L'Union européenne et les droits fondamentaux 75, 91 (Stéphane Leclerc, Jean-François Akandji-Kombé & Marie-Joëlle Redor eds., 1999), defined as “hiérarchies normatives” and “hiérarchies institutionnelles”. Google Scholar

¹⁴ One of the earliest and most insightful accounts of this misplacement has been made by Panunzio, Sergio, I diritti fondamentali e le Corti in Europa, in I diritti fondamentali e le Corti in Europa 3, 23 (Sergio Panunzio ed., 2005).Google Scholar

¹⁵ An insightful critique of a similar misplacement can be found in Cartabia, Marta, Europe and Rights: Taking Dialogue Seriously, 5 Eur. Const. L. Rev. 5, 25 (2009).Google Scholar

¹⁶ Sarmiento, Daniel, The Silent Lamb and the Deaf Wolves. Constitutional Pluralism, Preliminary References and the Role of Silent Judgments in EU law, in Constitutional Pluralism in the European Union and Beyond 285, 289 (Matej Avbelj & Jan Komárek eds., 2012).Google Scholar

¹⁷ Onida, Valerio, «Armonio tra diversi» e problemi aperti. La giurisprudenza costituzionale tra ordinamento interno e ordinamento comunitario, 22 Quaderni costituzionali 549, 551 (2002).Google Scholar

¹⁸ Order 23. June 1999, No. 267.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Orders 29. December 1995, No. 536; 26. July 1996, No. 319; 18. April 2008, Nos. 108 and 109.Google Scholar

²⁰ According to the rules regulating the procedure before the ICC, an order of referral raised by a judge is admissible insofar as the decision of the ICC is necessary in order to define the case pending before it (criterio della rilevanza). Google Scholar

²¹ Judgment 23. April 1985, No. 113 and judgment 11 July 1989, No. 389.Google Scholar

²² Judgments 10. November 1994, No. 384; 30. March 1995, No. 94; 13. January 2004, No. 7; 28. March 2006, No. 129.Google Scholar

²³ Order 28. July 1976, No. 206.Google Scholar

²⁴ Judgment 18. April 1991, No. 168.Google Scholar

²⁵ See, inter alia, orders 29. December 1995, No. 536; 26. July 1996, No. 319.Google Scholar

²⁶ Not to mention the legal flaw of a similar stance, given that the ICC previously qualified itself as a “judge” in order to raise a constitutional referral before itself. Tania Groppi, La Corte costituzionale come giudice del rinvio ai sensi dell'art. 177 del trattato CE, in Giudici e giurisdizioni nella giurisprudenza della Corte costituzionale 171, 187 (Pietro Ciarlo, Giovanni Pitruzzella & Rolando Tarchi eds., 1997).Google Scholar

²⁷ Orders 14. March 2003, No. 62; 20. April 2004, No. 125; 24. February 2006, No. 70.Google Scholar

²⁸ An extensive account of these critical stances can be found in Marta Cartabia, La Corte costituzionale italiana e il rinvio pregiudiziale alla Corte di giustizia europea, in Le Corti dell'integrazione europea e la Corte costituzionale italiana 99, 107 (Nicolò Zanon & Valerio Onida eds., 2006).Google Scholar

²⁹ Augusto Cerri, Corso di giustizia costituzionale plurale 181 (2012). In a similar vein, see Cartabia, Marta, Considerazioni sulla posizione del giudice comune di fronte a casi di «doppia pregiudizialità» comunitaria e costituzionale, 120 Il Foro italiano 222, 224 (1997). On dual preliminarity as a more general problem concerning multiple loyalties of judges in multilevel contexts, see Martinico, Giuseppe, Multiple loyalties and dual preliminarity: The pains of being a judge in a multilevel legal order, 10 I-CON 871 (2012).Google Scholar

³⁰ The intertwining of these two aspects has been highlighted by Cartabia, supra note 15, at 115 and Dani, supra note 10, at 157–58.Google Scholar

³¹ Judgment 18. December 2002, No. 529.Google Scholar

³² EU Framework decision 2001/220 of 15 March 2001, O.J. 2001 L 82/1.Google Scholar

³³ See Spaventa, Eleanor, Opening Pandora's Box: Some Reflections on the Constitutional Effects of the Decision in Pupino, 3 EuConst 5 (2007).Google Scholar

³⁴ Case 105/03, Criminal proceedings against Maria Pupino, 2005 E.C.R. I–5285, para. 47.Google Scholar

³⁵ Dani, supra note 10, at 157.Google Scholar

³⁶ EEC Directive 68/151 of 9 March 1968, O.J. L 65.Google Scholar

³⁷ Art. 117(1) reads, “Legislative powers shall be vested in the State and the Regions in compliance with the Constitution and with the constraints deriving from EU legislation and international obligations.”Google Scholar

³⁸ Order 1. June 2004, No. 165.Google Scholar

³⁹ Joined Cases C–387/02, C–391/02, and C–403/02, Silvio Berlusconi, 2005 E.C.R. I–3565, para. 75.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ The exemplarity of the Berlusconi saga is thoroughly investigated by Cartabia, supra note 28, at 110.Google Scholar

⁴¹ See Fontanelli & Martinico, supra note 12, at 350.Google Scholar

⁴² Judgment 15. April 2008, No. 102, para. 8.2.8.1. (official translation available at http://www.cortecostituzionale.it/documenti/download/doc/recent_judgments/S2008102_Bile_Gallo_en.pdf).Google Scholar

⁴³ Judgment No. 102/2008 (note 43), para. 8.2.8.1.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ “[…]where the ordinary courts question the compatibility of national law with EC law, the failure to make a preliminary reference to the European Court of Justice means that any question of constitutionality raised by it is not relevant and therefore inadmissible.” See id. Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Order 15. April 2008, No. 103 (official translation http://www.cortecostituzionale.it/documenti/download/doc/recent_judgments/O2008103_Bile_Gallo_en.pdf).Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Bartole, Sergio, Pregiudiziale comunitaria e «integrazione» di ordinamenti, 36 Le Regioni 898, 900 (2008).Google Scholar

⁴⁷ “The overruling should not be overemphasized.” Cartabia, supra note 15, at 24.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Bartole, supra note 46, at 902.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Order 18. July 2013, No. 207 (official translation http://www.cortecostituzionale.it/documenti/download/doc/recent_judgments/207-2013.pdf).Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Council Directive concerning the framework agreement on fixed-term work concluded by ETUC, UNICE and CEEP, O.J. L 175/43.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Guastaferro, Barbara, La Corte costituzionale ed il primo rinvio pregiudiziale in un giudizio di legittimità costituzionale in via incidentale: riflessioni sull'ordinanza n. 207 del 2013, Forum di Quaderni costituzionali 1, 7 (Oct. 21, 2013), available at www.forumcostituzionale.it).Google Scholar

⁵² Order 17. December 2008, Nos. 415 and 2. April 2009, No. 100.Google Scholar

⁵³ See supra note 20.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ The outcome is even more striking if one highlights that, with a judgment issued in 2012 (No. 10127 of 20 June 2012) the Italian Court of Cassation stated that the norms at stake did not have to be challenged before the CJEU because of its univocal case law on this matter. See 0. Pollicino, From Partial to Full Dialogue with Luxembourg: the Last Cooperative Step of the Italian Constitutional Court, 10 EuConst 151 (2014).Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Order No. 207/2013.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Cannizzaro, supra note 12, at 827 (arguing that this need for a justification can be qualified in terms of “active cooperation”).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Order no. 207/2013.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ A similar opinion is shared by Matteucci, Stefano Civitarese, The Italian Constitutional Court Strengthens the Dialogue with the European Court of Justice Lodging for the First Time a Preliminary Ruling in an Indirect (‘Incidenter') Proceeding, 20 Eur. Pub. L. (2014), 641.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Judgments 23. December 2008, No. 439; 21. January 2010, No. 16; 16. October 2014, No. 235.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Judgment 31. March 2015, No. 56.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Judgment 7. July 2015, No. 130.Google Scholar

⁶² For a partially different stance, according to which in this case the ICC has accepted to be engaged in a “full dialogue” with the CJEU. See Pollicino, supra note 54, at 153.Google Scholar

⁶³ See supra note 50.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ See supra note 38.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Judgment 22. May 2013, No. 94.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Cerri, Augusto, La doppia pregiudiziale in una innovativa decisione della Corte, 57 GC 2897, 2898 (2013).Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Id. at 2900; Onida, supra note 17, at 557.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Decisions of 2, 15, and 29 January 2013.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ The difference between first order and second order of justification is drawn by MacCormick, Neil, Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory 99 (1994).Google Scholar

⁷⁰ In a similar vein, Cartabia, supra note 15, at 29, argued that “[d]octrines like direct and indirect effect could easily be interpreted so as to involve also the supreme and constitutional courts, instead of banning them.”Google Scholar

⁷¹ One might see in this the acceptance by the ICC of the systemic combination of direct effect and preliminary reference as it has been emphasized by Joseph H.H. Weiler, Van Gend en Loos: The individual as subject and object and the dilemma of European legitimacy, 12 I-CON 94, 95 (2014).Google Scholar

⁷² Prechal, Sacha, Direct Effect, Indirect Effect, Supremacy and the Evolving Constitution of the European Union, in The Fundamentals of EU Law Revisited: Assessing the Impact of the Constitutional Debate 35, 36 (Catherine Barnard ed., 2007).Google Scholar

⁷³ These transformations involving the doctrine of direct effect are deeply analyzed by Sophie Olivier-Robin, The evolution of direct effect in the EU: Stocktaking, problems, projections, 12 I-CON 165 (2014).Google Scholar

⁷⁴ In this (slightly different) perspective, I share the assumption of Dani, supra note 9, at 169, according to which “[a]s long as the EU judicial architecture will maintain its current post-Simmenthalstructure, the task of conveying constitutional traditions to Luxembourg cannot but rest with ordinary courts.”Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Olivier-Robin, supra note 73, at 185.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Prechal, supra note 72, at 37.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ A similar view is shared by Matteucci, Stefano Civitarese, Breaking the Isolation? Italian Perspectives on the Dialogue between the CJEU and Constitutional Courts, Paper presented at the Edinburgh Law School Constitutional discussion Group Seminar, 26 May, 2015, unpublished (courtesy of the Author) and, albeit in a not coincident perspective, by Cannizzaro, supra note 12, at 831, that emphasizes the “functional decoupling” (duplicità funzionale) between the CJEU and Constitutional Courts.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Cannizzaro, supra note 12, at 830.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Needless to refer, among others, to the Landtová case decided by the Czech Constitutional Court (Judgment of 31 January 2012, PI. ÚS 5/12, Slovak Pensions XVII) or to the OMT case of the German Federal Constitutional Tribunal (Decision of 14 January 2014, 2 BvR 2728/13).Google Scholar

⁸⁰ ICC, Judgment 22. October 2014, No. 238 with respect to Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v. Italy), ICJ Reports 2012, 96.Google Scholar

⁸¹ ICC, Judgment 28. November 2012, No. 264.Google Scholar

⁸² Martinico, Giuseppe, The Tangled Complexity of the EU Constitutional Process. The frustrating knot of Europe 116 (2013).Google Scholar

⁸³ As far as the role of Constitutional Courts in the European legal landscape is concerned, the pluralist setting enshrined in the “constitutional sensitivity” approach could lead to an understating of the clash between the “jurisprudence of constitutional conflict” setting. See Kumm, Mattias, The Jurisprudence of Constitutional Conflict: Constitutional Supremacy in Europe before and after the Constitutional Treaty, 11 EU 262 (2005). For the strain toward the establishment of a “European constitutional democracy” recently proposed by Jan Komárek, see Jan Komárek, National Constitutional Courts in the European Constitutional Democracy, 12 I-CON 525 (2014). Their mutual commitment to constitutional pluralism can be emphasized in that the need to provide a balance between European and national constitutional supremacy cannot find a solution only in the reasons and arguments advanced by (national and supranational) courts, because a more deep commitment to the value choices enshrined in the continuum EU-national law is required: either in terms of the relevant principles governing the “constitutionalism beyond the State” paradigm (“the formal principle of legality, jurisdictional principle of subsidiarity, the procedural principle of democracy, and substantive principle of the protection of basic rights or reasonableness,” Kumm, supra in this note, at 299) or by recalling the capacity of Constitutional Courts to revitalize the communicative arrangement for those who are de facto excluded by the enjoyment of EU individual freedoms (Komárek, supra in this note, at 539).Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Joined Cases C–22/13, C–61/13 to C–63/13, and C–418/13, 2014, Raffaella Mascolo v. Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca, (Nov. 26, 2014), http://curia.europa.eu/.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Sarmiento, Daniel, National Voice and European Loyalty. Member State Autonomy, European Remedies and Constitutional Pluralism in EU Law, in The European Court of Justice and the Autonomy of Member States 325, 336 (Hans-W. Micklitz & Bruno De Witte eds., 2012). It must however be observed that Mascolo was mainly addressed to the legislator because of the persistent and massive noncompliance of the school recruitment system with the basic criteria of EU law with regard to fixed-term employment.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Dani, supra note 10, at 168. In a similar vein see Amtenbrink, Fabian, The European Court of Justice's Approach to Primacy and European Constitutionalism—Preserving the European Constitutional Order?, in The European Court of Justice and the Autonomy of Member States, 35, 60 (Hans-W. Micklitz & Bruno De Witte eds., 2012).Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Sarmiento, supra note 85, at 344, with reference to A.O. Hirschmann, Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States (1970).Google Scholar