Daniela Piana

Beyond the "Etat" de droit. The social dimensions of legality in a European and comparative perspective

This project engages the pursuit of a new framework to analyze, monitor, assess the rule of law and the quality of justice in developed and consolidated democracies. It focuses on the quality of justice as a concept that encompasses the rule of law and other important dimensions of a just society and a good democracy.
Rather than focusing exclusively and predominantly on the formal design of the legal and judicial institutions, the novelty of the project consists of casting light on the “law and justice phenomenon” first and foremost from a multi-dimensional point of view, which covers both the demand and the offer of the “law” and of “justice”. The epistemological foundations of this new approach as well as the methodological consequences that should be drawn from it are part of the project and will represent its first, groundbreaking product. It will consider the European member States, as first sample in the quantitative analysis. Then it will focus on two national cases, selected on the basis of the similarities in the procedural and constitutional dimensions of the judicial system, Italy and France. As a third and very important step, it will consider the level of social groups and communities in four urban context (Paris, Milan, Marseille, Catania), with the in depth study of the law and justice expectations and notions.