Definizioni normative e uso simbolico del diritto penale nel ddl Zan

di Emanuele Rossi

SOMMARIO: 1. Il disegno di legge S-2005 e i suoi contenuti. - 2. Le definizioni contenute nell’art. 1 e il loro valore. - 3. Le finalità pedagogiche delle definizioni in oggetto. - 4. Le disposizioni penali del ddl Zan. - 5. L’istigazione alla discriminazione e la tutela della libertà di espressione. - 6. Le altre misure, “promozionali”, del ddl Zan. - 7. Il ddl Zan e l’uso simbolico del diritto penale.

The essay analyzes the Bill No. S-2005 (known in the public debate with the name of its speaker in the Parliament, the member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies Alessandro Zan) and highlights two aspects related to the system of the sources of law: on the one hand, the definitions included therein and the value that these come to assume even beyond the text that provides them; on the other hand, the meaning of a predominantly criminal legislation aimed at favoring an evolution of social customs through the provision of sanctions. According to the thesis proposed in the essay, the bill has to be inscribed in the tendency to use criminal law in a symbolic-expressive function: a tendency that is hardly compatible with the role of “extrema ratio” that the Constitutional Court has recognized in this branch of law.