His work was rich in quantity and quality. Mauro Cappelletti, who was one of his beloved disciples and one of the most prominent proceduralists of the late twentieth century, author of the unsurpassed Project for Access to Justice Florence, published in "In memoria de Piero Calamandrei", as a testimony of admiration for he.
introduction
The purpose of this research work is to delve into the life, thought and work of the teacher Piero Calamandrei (1889-1956); as well as highlighting the great significance and validity of his wise teachings in contemporary global legal events.
Few figures in the legal scene of the 20th century have achieved the recognition and significance granted to the great Florentine professor, lawyer, jurist, journalist and politician; Piero Calamandrei.
Apart from his important legal studies and his prolific academic production, some of his essays, - like Troppi avvocati! (Too many lawyers!) And Elogio dei giudici scritto da un avvocato (Praise of the judges written by a lawyer) -; they have been and continue to be translated, republished, read and praised throughout the world.
Even more than fifty years after his death, not only in Italy, the name of Calamandrei not only continues in force, but also remains closely associated, due to his attitude throughout his public and private life; to the fight for freedom and democracy.
II. Historical review
Italian jurist (1889- 1956, Tuscany- Florence), son of Rodolfo Calamandrei and Laudomía Pimpinelli. Graduated in Pisa. Professor at the universities of Messina, Modena, Siena and Florence (in the latter, appointed Rector).
Great disciple of Carlos Lessona and Guiseppe Chiovenda. He was part (together with Redenti and Carnelutti) of the plethora of proceduralists and of the famous Italian School, which was born under the wing of Chiovenda.
He was Director of the Institute of Comparative Procedural Law of the University of Florence, also Director with Carnelutti of the "Procedural Law Review", with Finzi, Lessona e Paoli of the magazine "The Tuscan Forum" and with Alessandro Levi of the "Systematic Commentary of the Italian Constitution ”, in April 1945 he founded the political-literary magazine“ El Puente ”; and together with Francesco Carnelutti and Enrico Redenti, one of the main inspirers of the Code of Civil Procedure of 1940.
His work was rich in quantity and quality. Mauro Cappelletti, who was one of his beloved disciples and one of the most prominent proceduralists of the late twentieth century, author of the unsurpassed Project for Access to Justice Florence, published in "In memoria de Piero Calamandrei", as a testimony of admiration for he.
III. Phases of his Thought and Work
A) Lessonian Phase (Transition).- Characterized by the marked influence of its teacher Carlos Lessona. The essays include the "Call in guarantee" and the "Logical genesis of the civil sentence."
B) Chiovendian Phase.- Which was characterized by the influence of Guiseppe Chiovenda. Among his procedural works, the following stand out: "The Civil Cassation", "The Introduction to the Systematic Study of Precautionary Rulings" and "The Institutions of Civil Procedural Law".
Regarding his work "The Civil Cassation" we can mention that he defined cassation as a binomial between: the appeal and the court of cassation. However, for Salvatore Satta, it meant only the process.
Finally, Dr. José Antonio Silva Vallejo notices its four-dimensionality, that is, that it implies: a) The Appeal, b) The Court (guardian ad corpus, supreme interpreter and of a political hermeneutical nature and legal nomofiláquio), c) The Procedure and d) The Cassation function.
C) Human and sociological phase of the process.- It is characterized by the no lesser place occupied by their jobs linked to their professional and social concerns, among them, without a doubt, "Too many Lawyers", "The University of Tomorrow" and, above all all, "The Eulogy of the Judges written by a Lawyer", texts that surprise by their sharp reflections, whose actuality still remains alive in legal analysis.
“Too Many Lawyers” was published shortly after Calamandrei turned thirty. In this work, the young author denounces the "intellectual and moral decline of the Italian legal profession."
"The University of Tomorrow", in turn, published five years later, delves into the crisis of the institutional teaching of Law, highlighting as a central point the need to overcome the lectures by a Socratic method and, in turn, bring students closer to the practice of the profession.
This trilogy, a true X-ray of Italian legal activity in the Academy and the Forum, concludes with the publication of the "In Praise of the Judges written by a Lawyer", where its lines reflect a faith in judges and lawyers, recovered in a mature age, which subsists despite the vicissitudes of a historical transit marked by the directives of the fascist government. In this work he develops topics such as the administration of justice in authoritarian systems, the decorum of the magistrates in their private lives and the necessarily dynamic character of jurisprudence, among many other matters.
Santiago Sentís Melendo, one of its translators, points out that perhaps the most convenient thing would have been only "Judges and Lawyers", since "they are not, in the book, facing each other, but intermingled and confused."
IV. Brief passage through his work "praise of the judges written by a lawyer"
However, beyond the obvious differences, a faith in justice underlies the work, which constitutes the Praise of the Judges in “the book of justice and its priests; not the lawyer, seeing, contemplating, the judge, but mutual contemplation, with serenity, impartiality, with soft irony, with melancholic tones.
Regarding “faith in the judges”, the first requirement of the lawyer, a conviction in justice is revealed that, even after difficult years, indicates that to be proven by the judge, the honest conviction on the ground is enough. of the cause and the respect of the suitable procedural forms, eliminating the bad arts of the forum.
In the study of civility (or discretion) in judges, a special reference is made to probity (punctuality) and refers to the fact that the judicial office that does not demand vociferations and implies professional consideration.
The study of certain similarities and of certain differences between judges and lawyers indicates that the lawyer is the boisterous and generous youth of the judge, while the judge is the calm and ascetic old age of the lawyer. At the same time, while the lawyer, when assuming a defense, has his path outlined, the judge faces only one duty: to judge, beyond the natural limitations of the human soul.
In his study of "forensic oratory" he finally points out that it is better for justice to win, even to the detriment of forensic oratory.
He also criticizes the drowsiness of the magistrates, whose dissimulation not infrequently they manage to attend the hearings with black glasses.
Regarding certain relationships between lawyers and the truth, Calamandrei analyzes the obligatory partiality of the defender, in this sense he points out “the lawyer, like the historian, would betray his office if he altered the truth by relating invented facts; On the other hand, he does not betray it while he limits himself to collecting and coordinating, from the harsh reality, only those aspects that favor his thesis.
Then Calamandrei reveals the "difference between the great lawyer according to the public and the one who really is", the latter must help the judges to decide according to justice and the clients to assert their own reasons.
In the study of "litigation", highlighting that "the honest lawyer must be, more than the clinician, the hygienist of judicial life."
In the analysis of the predilections of lawyers and judges for questions of law or for those of fact, Calamandrei vindicates the importance of the evidentiary issue, the basis for a just and not merely beautiful sentence.
In reviewing sentiment and logic in sentences, Calamandrei questions the traditional logic of the syllogism, highlighting the role they play in judging intuition and sentiment (enemy of the genuflecting character of many judges regarding the law), which It leads him to suggest that more than one person would say that "sentence derives from feeling."
It also refers to the mutual respect that should exist between lawyers and judges and vice versa, and the deep admiration of lawyers for the judicial office, mainly.
In the analysis of the sense of responsibility and the love of a quiet life or of the judicial order, which in Calamandrei's words is not a branch of the bureaucracy but a religious order, he relates the greater demands that the judicial office supposes, saying that « So high is in our estimation the mission of the judge and so necessary the trust in him, that human weaknesses that are not noticed, or are forgiven in any other order of public officials, seem inconceivable in a magistrate ».
Finally, in reviewing certain sadness and certain heroism in the life of lawyers, Calamandrei presents us to the courts as those gray hospitals of all human corruption, in which the judges face the drama of their loneliness, the contemplation of human sadness and the arrival of custom, a habit that makes us lose the almost religious feeling that judging represents.
V. Conclusions and suggestions
More than half a century after the death of Maestro Piero Calamandrei, time has not erased the force of his work (expressed with a genius and passion that breathes life, as well as with an extremely diaphanous and poetic style), on the contrary, the It has potentiated, transforming it into an icon of global procedural legal science.
Thus, paraphrasing Dr. Arturo Onfray Vivanco, it remains so current (as a lively critique of problems that still affect the global legal environment today) that it seems as if Maestro Calamandrei was still among us, his "students."
His work has become a classic, which it is possible to associate with the pen of other important authors who have contributed to build a kind of ode to the legal profession, such as Eduardo Couture with "Los mandamientos del Abogado" and Ángel Ossorio with " The Soul of the Robe ”.
A palpable proof of the inspiration that the life, thought and work of the master Calamandrei generated in Eduardo Couture we have in the handwriting dedication of his work "Legal Vocabulary" in which the latter said: "To F. Carnelutti and P Calamandrei, teachers, friends and exemplary companions in the adventure of legal thought, I dedicate this working instrument to science that they taught me ”.
Finally, we have not only the path of the obligatory reading, criticism, analysis and dissemination of the work of the master Calamandrei, but also, mainly, the putting into practice of his teachings, as well as the permanent continuation of his exemplary thought through legal production (teaching, articles, essays, research, books…) on this subject.
SAW. Bibliography
- Chanamé Orbe, Raúl. Legal Dictionary. Editorial Gráfica Horizonte. Lima, 2002.
- Couture, Eduardo. J. Legal Vocabulary. Editorial Depalma. Buenos Aires. 1983.
- Onfray Vivanco, Arturo. Piero Calamandrei: Praise of the judges written by a Lawyer. Legal Editions Europaamérica, Buenos Aires, 1989.
- Silva Vallejo, José A. The philosophical and legal thought of the great teachers, the schools. Lime. 2007.
- «http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piero_Calamandrei».
