The issue. The split of the training of jurists and their culture

Abstract

Sharing knowledge and broadly understood languages is a prerequisite for any dialogue. There cannot, then, be continuity of understanding over time and, therefore, a helpful interaction between interlocutors if those interlocutors do not take care to keep up to date and the training methods are not such as to take adequate consideration of the situation of the subjects with whom one is in dialogue. Indeed, incomprehension or incommunicability may also result from a subsequent inattention to the constant, unstoppable change affecting society and each of its components and their sensitivities.

The necessary sharing of knowledge and languages is undeniable when different categories of subjects – characterized by differing roles and objectives – have to contribute to realizing a common purpose of public interest, as is the case with the justice administration.

The sharing of a common cultural heritage – constantly updated – is fundamental to ensure the most efficient and effective interaction between judges and lawyers, above all, to allow, in the adversarial process, the peculiarities of the concrete case to be adequately considered with a view to identifying the applicable rule and then to settle the dispute with a comprehensible and agreeable solution, but first reasonably foreseeable.

Given that instrumental relationship between culture and justice, the current legislation imposes a series of training and refresher training obligations on magistrates and lawyers, respectively, through provisions that do not appear to be adequately coordinated and that do not seem capable of guaranteeing that plurality of shared knowledge necessary for effective dialogue.

The study analyses the main legislative prescriptions and then verifies their ability to achieve the stated objective. Then, having noted the inadequacy of the solutions provided, it proposes to remedy the shortcomings by re-evaluating the role of institutions of high culture, including universities. In particular, through the involvement in deepening and updating activities of those institutions where all jurists – lawyers and magistrates – received their initial training. Therefore, through a full reinvolvement, in the next phase, of those institutions qualified to identify common paths for the cultural growth of lawyers and magistrates and, therefore, to overcome, at least in part, some of the critical issues that plague domestic disputes.