La regolamentazione dei partiti e la loro democrazia interna in Italia: dal regime di applicazione convenzionale alla prima legge di attuazione dell'art. 49 Cost.?

This article deals with the issues related to the article 49 of the Italian Constitution with particular regard to "internal democracy” of the political parties. As has been underlined by Leopoldo Elia, the article 49 has been based for a long time on kind of the "unwritten agreement” between the political parties in order to control themselves. Currently, some factors have gradually emerged as crucial to explain the "failure” of conventional application about the article 49 of the Italian Constitution, with particular regard to the "internal democracy” of political parties: for this reason, iťs interesting to assess — as the Authors observe — the enforcement of the multisectoral constitutional and legal framework on the political parties in almost all Western democracies and also in the European Law (ił includes, for instance, the issues of electoral legislation or the discipline of media and new media), based, in both cases, on an idea of "sustainable” democracy. In Italy, there were many difficulties in the recent Legislatures (XV and XVI) in order to approve a law on the "democratic method as a legal duty in the internal activity of the political parties. This situation is going to change — as the Authors say in this article — with the option, probably for the first time, of the law implementing the article 49 towards the institutionalization of national political parties.