The Road to Palazzo della Consulta: Profiles and Careers of Italian Constitutional Judges

Abstract

Constitutional courts' judges are powerful, yet understudied elites. Unlike other political elites which have been studied for over a century, studying their profiles and careers represents a neglected field of analysis from European political science. This is surprising given the centrality of the question, "who governs?" to an understanding of a political system. However, few studies have attempted to document systemic differences in the profiles and careers of apex courts' judges, so that this field of analysis is both under-researched and under-appreciated. Drawing on an original dataset, this article contributes to filling in this gap by looking systematically at the profiles and careers of Constitutional court judges in Italy from 1956 to 2021. The article first examines the characteristics of the selection of Constitutional Court's judges according to the Italian constitutional jurisdiction. Second, it explores the socio-demographic background of the Italian constitutional judges. Third, it investigates the political and/or technical experience prior to the period in office. The last section concludes the analysis and opens the way to further research, emphasizing the need for comparative analyses on this issue.