Looking for common solutions to the courts' problems: The Italian Observatories of civil justice

Abstract

The Italian judicial system has been living a long season of strong criticality. Over the past 30 years, several factors have aggravated the difficulties of the system operation. To solve this situation, in the period 2005-2013, Italian Governments have developed 12 major reforms of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure. Paradoxically, the succession of continuous reforms has ended to slow the activity of the practitioners, called constantly to adapt to the change of the “rules of the game”, with obvious repercussions on the functioning of the courts and, indirectly, on citizens’ rights. The constant changes of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure have pushed many “actors” to establish opportunities to meet, in a more or less formalised and structured way, in order to discuss the possible “practical translation” of the regulatory norms. In this sense, the article intends to present and critically discuss the phenomenon of the “Observatories of civil justice”, which represents a unique experience in the European panorama.