Marta Cartabia's Way of Teaching

In September – at the end of her term as Justice and President of the Italian Constitutional Court – when many people commented on Marta Cartabia's choice to return to teaching as a decision to return to private life, she objected: "Teaching is not only a public service, but it is perhaps among the most essential. The problem is that in Italy it is too underappreciated." These few words and this conception of teaching as a civil service encompass the entire vision that has motivated the jurist in her long career as a university professor. It is what has now led her to Bocconi, where she recently joined the Department of Legal Studies as Professor of Constitutional Law.

What kind of professor is Marta Cartabia today, in light of your institutional experience?
I like to recall a saying by jurist Oliver W. Holmes: "The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience." Law is a social science that lives in its relationship with the ups and downs of life: I hope and believe that my roles as Justice and then President of the Constitutional Court have enriched my legal culture of living justice. It is an aspect that I think I can offer students now more than in the past.

At Bocconi you teach Italian and European Constitutional Law and Constitutional Justice. What's the first thing you said to your students?
I wanted to explain my methodology, so I referenced a phrase by John Henry Newman. He asked his instructors to provide "a living teaching," emphasizing that knowledge is more than passively receiving concepts in a cold classroom. The University's task is to educate the intellect to think critically in every area. What I would like to propose to my students is to participate in this shared adventure, to seek critical knowledge together. Law lends itself well to this, because it is a resolution of conflicts and disputes. The law does not ask students just to understand concepts, but to put them into practice using reason.

Are there any other important messages that Constitutional Law professors must give their students today?
That our task is not just to create professional students, but aware citizens with a strong critical spirit. What we do in the classroom is about both learning legal instruments and growing as a person.

When you talk about your work with students you always talk about it in the plural. The subject of your sentences is 'we.'
Teaching is always in the plural, it's a community adventure. It's an opportunity also for me to continue growing.

How do you set up your work?
I want to capitalize on significant aspects of two traditions that I myself experienced growing up: continental European and Anglo-American traditions. The former is that of a great conceptual and linguistic-systematic rigor which I also require from students. The latter is based on the more typically Socratic method, which aims to develop the skills that every good jurist must have in terms of problem-solving skills. In the classroom I don't give lectures, I ask students to study the material before class and then in class I ask questions to prompt them to see problems and try to find answers.

What is your approach with students?
I don't keep my distance from anyone, ever. Least of all with university students, who I find are in a very interesting phase of their life, a phase that I wouldn't want to miss for all the world.

Have you missed teaching in recent years?
Terribly. And I missed my relationship with students very much. Unfortunately, there is this very Italian rule that Justices on the Constitutional Court cannot teach. In my opinion it's a shame because I believe that education is one of the highest, most delicate and crucial public duties. Furthermore, when students actively participate, with their desire to understand and their nonjudgmental and open minds, they ask us questions that make us think, so they give a lot back to their instructors. What I have done in recent years has been to never refuse invitations to conferences at universities.

What's the most rewarding thing about being a university professor?
Seeing personalities and professionalism blossom. Seeing students we met at eighteen, maybe a little bewildered, become great professionals.

You also do research. What are your areas of study?
So far, mainly the constitutional dimension of European integration, protection of fundamental human rights and, of course, systems of constitutional justice, always in a comparative and international perspective, which is characteristic of all the lines of my research. I have also studied humanistic, cultural and legal dimensions and the topic of the aims of criminal justice. I believe that one of the areas I will focus on is an analysis of how the relationship between public and private is being reconfigured, especially in light of the pandemic.

Why did you choose Bocconi?
For its international scope, which has always been a characteristic of my career: I went abroad during my last year of university before the Erasmus project even existed. This opportunity is essential for me, both in teaching and in research. And then I saw a young but developing School of Law, a dynamic environment where there is room to grow, and I met colleagues who I immediately felt connected to and who I could collaborate with successfully. But there's another reason: I was invited to the 10th anniversary of the School and I was impressed with the students' high level of motivation. This is particularly fertile ground for an instructor.

What have these nine years at the Constitutional Court given you, with your experience as President?

Such an institutional experience gives you the enormous power to write small pieces of the legal system, a truly great responsibility because a comma or a word can change people's lives. The Constitutional Court is an environment in which we train to balance diversity: all decisions are taken with the plenum of the Court and everyone has a very strong and motivated point of view. You must learn to listen to the reasons of others, even perhaps to allow yourself to be corrected in your own approaches. It is an appreciation for cultural pluralism and mediation. This is true especially as President, whose task is to reconcile all the voices present, even when there are conflicting opinions.