ABSTRACT
The Constitution is the basic law of the Italian State, occupying the chief place in the hierarchy of legal sources. After it comes from ordinary legislation, the codes being the main sources of this, as one would expect in a civil law system. When Napoleon was defeated in 1814, the Italian States that had been subjugated by him were returned to their own governments. Not surprisingly, they did not have any great enthusiasm for remaining under the governance of the French system of laws which had been imposed upon them as part and parcel of the Napoleonic occupation. The statuto Albertino is generally regarded as a weak constitution. This value judgement reflects in fact the reasons for its rejection and replacement in 1948. It was and is regarded as weak because it was not a basic law in the sense that all other laws were inferior to it.
