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ENVIRONMENT

FROM GOOD TO VALUE

by Stefano Cazora

onstitution is the DNA of a State, it includes its genesis and
evolution. Just like the fundamental molecule that rules the life of
Chuman beings, the alteration of a Constitution is it not an easy task.
The latter is only possible after the values and precepts that are meant to be changed
or added have been settled in that particular preparatory crucible which is the
material Constitution of a Nation, its common sense.
Even though late and among many difficulties, the legislator endeavours to
accomplish a delicate and important operation of constitutional engineering: that of
including the protection of the environment among the fundamental rights of the
Constitution. It is required to establish by force of law what has been known for
years by the elementary particles of a Nation, the citizens
There is certainly a strong relationship between the environment and the
protection of rights. Nevertheless, even after the environmentalist wave, the
international agreements on the subject and the birth of the European
Constitution, a juridical qualification of environment hasn’t been made up yet.
Though the term took its first steps in the year 2001 with the reform of claim V,
up to now the Constitutional Legislator lost the chance of changing the concept of
environment “from good to value”.
The sense of the importance of this value has given rise to a strong reforming
movement even in the complex field of sanctioning; that is the reason why the
Commission for the reform of the criminal code has begun a general review of
environmental crimes providing their insertion in the special part of the code. This
is a novelty not only from the systematic point of view, but also because the cases in .2
point are now qualified as crimes. This is a brave but necessary proposal even
though, as previously pointed out, an autonomous juridical concept of environment oI-n
doesn’t exist yet. n
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