Judicial authority, that is the set of bodies of justice, both ordinary and administrative and accounting, is the fundamental guarantee of rights and legality in a state that respects the principles of democracy, division of powers and primacy of law.

The Italian courts - the Constitutional Court as the judge of laws, the Supreme Court as the supreme instance of legitimacy, the Tribunals and courts of merit in the criminal and civil courts and in the administrative, accounting and military fields - deal contentiously with cases that often, in the most varied ways and according to the most diverse perspectives, affect the rights of the individual. Access to a judge to obtain a ruling on one's right that is alleged to have been infringed is itself a fundamental human right, to which are related the many other procedural rights that characterize due process.

In addition to ruling on individual cases, the judiciary contributes to the construction and evolution of applicable law through its jurisprudence. In recent years, and precisely with particular reference to the issue of fundamental rights, Italian jurisprudence has been strongly influenced by the jurisprudence of international courts, particularly the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union. The interaction between national judicial bodies and international courts with human rights jurisdiction highlights the universal nature of human rights. Dialogue with international courts and with courts in other countries called upon to apply the same standards on personal rights is of interest not only to the Supreme Courts of a state, but to all judges, who can draw on arguments developed abroad or internationally to refine guarantees of fundamental rights, in full compliance with the Constitution and laws.

In the Yearbook, a section is devoted to the concise presentation of cases drawn from Italian case law that came to judgment (with particular regard to the judgments of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court), as well as to case law developed by the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the EU that directly concerned Italy either because the Italian state appeared as an “accused,” or because the intervention of the European court concerned appeals filed by Italian citizens or related to norms of Italian law.