Taking non-retroactivity seriously

Sommario: 1. Lo storytelling della successione di leggi nel tempo. - 2. La retroattività legislativa è una fictio iuris. - 3. La retroattività legislativa come questione squisitamente costituzionale. - 4. Il principio d'irretroattività preso sul serio. -5. La metamorfosi dell'irretroattività, da principio vincolante a norma derogabile. - 6. Un sindacato di costituzionalità a intermittenza. - 7. Nuovi possibili argini alla retroattività legislativa. - 8. Il tempo manipolato. - Bibliografia

In most constitutional law textbooks, the phenomenon known as retroactivity of the law is dealt with as a problem of general theory of legal sources, as a diachronic relationship between two norms. This approach however obscures a different reality: the ample legislative discretion allowed on the legal value to be assigned to previous material acts and facts, which requires the judge to re-evaluate them on the basis of a previously inexistent norm. From this perspective, the problem of the temporal succession of laws ceases to be a strictly legal question and becomes a question of rights - a key question of legal politics. The article identifies limits to the manipulation of legislative time that seem urgently needed vis a vis a constitutional case law that is today too inconsistent on the issue.