Rome Workshop

May 2003

Organized in Rome at the Adriano Olivetti Foundation, the workshop entitled The Appointment of Judges to Constitutional/Supreme Courts, had the objective of exploring a topic rarely discussed by the large literature on judicial review and constitutional adjudication in the contemporary world: who are the individuals appointed at Supreme and Constitutional Courts, which is their professional and political background and how and why are they eventually selected? Given the very important role that justices play in almost any constitutional systems and the absence of political accountability of these organs, it is surprising that, with the partial exception of the US, not much is known concerning the real mechanisms of choice and selection of the appointees. We know, for sure, the formal rules for the appointment, but the real criteria are mostly opaque and unexplored. The workshop aimed to stimulate such type of enquiry. The papers presented and discussed produced some insight into these mechanisms, notably concerning the American Supreme Court, the German Bundesverfassungsgericht, the Italian Constitutional Court and the French Conseil Constitutionnel.

The event marks the fifth conference organized by the Olivetti Foundation and the Global Law School Program on Constitutional adjudication in comparative perspective. The first two conferences had as an object Constitutional Adjudication and Democracy, the third, The Origin of Constitutional Adjudication, and the fourth Constitutional Adjudication in Southern and Western Europe.

Participants of the workshop were the following: