Certezza del diritto e ordine giuridico moderno: un inventario tra ieri e oggi

Abstract

The essay starts from the analysis of an old interpretation – shamelessly ideological – according to which the eighteenth century juridical model based on positive law would have
been historically the one realising the need for law certainty. Theauthor is of the view that the concept of certainty, intended in a relative sense, is correlated to the existence of law itself. Certainty is realised and is perceived through two interlinked conditions: on the one hand, when in the specific juridical order a constitution that is considered effective exists; and on the other, when it produces the tools that are instrumental to satisfy the need for certainty in relation to its “Constitution”.
On the basis of such premises, the essay lists an inventory of the “things” that are met in the historical investigation for the centuries of the ancien régime in Europe.
With regard to the current crisis of certainty, the prospected thesis is that the present problems derive from the national constitutions’ necessary weakness faced by the globalised world; they do not offer sufficient guarantees to the needs of effectiveness, accountability and predictability when clashing with the wild waves of economics and politics.