Law of Italy
The Italian legal system has a plurality of sources of production. These are arranged in a hierarchical scale, under which the rule of a lower source cannot conflict with the rule of an upper source.
The Constitution of 1948 is the main source. The Italian Civil Code is based on codified Roman law with elements of the Napoleonic civil code and of the German BGB. The civil code of 1942 replaced the original one of 1865. The penal code was also written under fascism.
Both the civil code and the penal code have been modified in order to be in conformity with the current democratic constitution.Legislative power
Article 117 of the Constitution of Italy shares legislative power, according to the concerned matters, between Italian Parliament and regional councils. While a law ratified by the national Parliament is simply called legge and is enforced on the whole country, laws ratified by regional councils are named leggi regionali and can be applied only in the concerned region.
