Vigano', a Bocconi Professor as Constitutional Justice

HE LOVES MOZART AND TEACHING. WHEN PRESIDENT MATTARELLA APPOINTED HIM, HIS FIRST THOUGHT WENT TO HIS STUDENTS, GREAT JUDGES OF LEGAL ARGUMENTS, WHOM HE'LL NO LONGER BE ABLE TO LECTURE NOW THAT HE SITS ON THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT


The issue is serious, complex, controversial, one of those legal arguments you have to handle with extreme caution, but he makes it seem simple, clear, almost obvious. This is how Francesco Viganò, 52 years old, a professor of criminal law at Bocconi and freshly appointed by the President as member of the Constitutional Court, addresses human rights and social duties, democracy and freedom, speaking of countervailing forces achieving a perfect balance.

And to do so, he listens to Mozart, whose music is so harmonious that it dissolves any contradictions into a higher plane of the mind. As a civil rights scholar, Viganò has always worked to bring legal reasoning closer to social reality: "My nomination is attestation of the fact that the Bocconi school of legal thinking can act as bridge between theory and practice". He shows this commitment also in his university lectures, where he encourages students to actively participate in classroom debates, and in the online magazine Penalecontemporaneo.it which he founded together with legal attorney Luca Santa Maria.

➜ How do you pass the value of laws and of the Constitution on to new generations?
As a father and teacher, my priority is to convey the idea that every individual also has specific duties towards others: Article 2 of the Italian Constitution is the norm that recognizes the fundamental and inviolable rights of the human person and, at the same time, the mandatory duties of solidarity with others. In particular, as for my son, who is 11 years old, I am working to teach him the duty to go to school prepared and work hard on what he can do for himself and for other people. Values evolve over time, but the duty of solidarity is universal and ahistorical. After fighting for a long time to introduce rights into criminal law, now, in discussions on law, I often find myself insisting on the importance of duties.

➜ Are we talking about respect?
The idea of respect is perhaps reductive because it is linked to the notion of non-invasive behavior towards others. Conversely, I believe that solidarity is an attitude of participation and interconnection with others, at the cost of being a bit intrusive. Each of us has a task in society and in our families: this is the rule of law.

➜ In this individualistic era, how do you rekindle a collective sense of belonging?
Life cannot only be a race to affirm oneself, but must contribute to increasing overall happiness. This is the goal that each of us must have, even as parents, professors, judges.

➜ As a professor, what is your relationship with students?
When I received the presidential nomination as Constitutional Judge, I immediately wondered how I could live without teaching to my students, who are my mirror and lifeblood. Throughout the years, I have received extraordinary intellectual stimulation from them. Young people often are the best judges of the plausibility of an idea and therefore represent an extraordinary form of intellectual encouragement.

➜ And how do you encourage them?
I always try to motivate them to make a final assessment of the interpretive solutions they arrive at, so that they can evaluate them also at the level of common sense and humanity. I want to instill in young people the awareness that criminal law is strictly interconnected with human dramas, because the main actors in this branch of jurisprudence are the weak, either as victims of the crime or as convicts: the latter, in fact, become weak subjects the moment they are turned into objects of the state’s punitive pretense.

➜ The style of your lectures seems a bit Socratic..
Absolutely, I want to stir up a debate and convey a vision. In the classroom, I move around constantly, I try to involve the youth and, sometimes, in a rush of enthusiasm, I happen to give them a high-five. One of the greatest satisfactions was being told by some students that, thanks to my lectures, they had found the courage to expose their thoughts in class: by overcoming their shyness, they realized they could say something intelligent in front of an audience. All of this is extraordinary and reminds me a bit of my personal story.

➜ In what sense?
As a child and as a boy I had a problem with stuttering that affected me a lot. In my studies, I met people who encouraged me to face the issue head-on without complexes. Professor Giorgio Marinucci, in particular, was a teacher who could understand the quality of people, going beyond external appearances.

➜ You also train future judges. What is the advice you can give them?
Unlike my wife who is a criminal judge, I have never issued a penal ruling, because I have always worked as a criminal attorney. In any case, my suggestion is to learn a technique, internalize basic principles, and never forget common sense and humanity. Terence used to say Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto, that is, " I am a man, I consider nothing that is human alien to me". The quotation contains the idea of being able to recognize in the defendant the same humanity of which the judge is part of, without, however, failing to condemn a crime. Furthermore, one should never forget to be polite with chancellors, defendants, lawyers and all the people you meet in the practice of justice, because a judge already wields considerable power and doesn’t need to be ostentatious about it.

➜ Do freedom and democracy coincide?
It sounds almost like a hendiadys, but in fact liberty and democracy are inspired by two different kinds of logic. Democracy assigns the majority the task of deciding on the common good. Freedom – of expression, thought, religion, assembly, the hard core of human rights – has the function of protecting the individual against the Hobbesian Leviathan which is the state, even if it presents itself under the guise of democratic government. The contradictory forces expressed by these two conditions find a crucial balance in the rule of law. Judges are the guardians of human rights and their task is to defend them firmly, without being excessively imposing with respect to the decisions of the majority. The ruling majority, in turn, must respect certain unassailable rights protecting the individual. It is a complex harmony.

➜ Speaking about harmony, you love classical music..
I love Mozart. His works are the perfect embodiment of that Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto maxim. In particular, the three operas written in collaboration with the Italian Da Ponte, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte, are marvelous representations of humankind’s many qualities and faults, and all of the drama and comedy of human existence. The composer expresses the continuous search for harmony between contrasting forces, bringing them to a higher synthesis.
 
 

by Ilaria De Bartolomeis
Translated by Alex Foti