Il dibattito sulla proprietà privata negli anni Trenta del Novecento

The Fascist policy to deal with the agrarian question provided, in the Third Decade of the XX Century, an urge to the private law scholarship to reconsider the contents of the right of ownership. On one side there were the legal experts that promoted the shaping of the property right to be oriented under a public policy goal and on the other side there were the scholars who, however accepting limitations by legislation to the powers of landlords defended the position of the property owner as active subject of an absolute relationship. The Art. 832 of 1942’ s Civil Code substantially accepted the second thesis, if embodied in a very technical notion. No reference to the social function was declared. The Art. 42 of the Constitution, in a very different political and social context, finally introduced this provision; the rule of law has not allowed the judiciary or the public administration to limit the right of ownership by themselves but made legitimate and in some way mandatory a role of legislators to conform the property rights. The social function has represented, therefore, a new possibility, never fully achieved, to shape the inner structure of the terrible right.

Antonio Jannarelli, Il dibattito sulla proprietà privata negli anni Trenta del Novecento in "AGRICOLTURA ISTITUZIONI MERCATI " 1/2007, pp 21-52, DOI: