Table of contents

1. The difficulties in reflecting on the concept of public order - 2. The Court of Cassation's opinion on the so-called "Italian" public order to be applied in the deliberation of canonical judgements of matrimonial nullity - 3. 3. Critical observations on the "Italian" public policy concept drawn up by the court of legitimacy - 4. The evolutionary line of the Court of Cassation's thinking - 5. Public policy in its particular function of mediating between values and needs linked to historical development - 7. Public policy as ordo ordinatus and as ordo ordinans - 8. Supreme principles of the constitutional order and public order - 9. Public order and the principles of international origin that inform the domestic regulatory system - 10. Public policy in private law relationships - 11. National character of public policy. Need for a unitary consideration of the concept of public policy. The use of equivocal terminology to be overcome - 12. Reference to principles, in matters of international importance, not for their prescriptive force but for their axiological content - 13. The contrasting orientations of the Court of Cassation on the effectiveness of public policy in the case of cohabitation after the celebration of the marriage - 16. The "greater availability" towards canonical judgments of matrimonial nullity. The reference to the "specificity" of the Church's legal system - 17. The operativeness of public policy in a vision of openness of the legal system

Keywords

Public order; deliberation of ecclesiastical judgements of matrimonial nullity; jurisprudential orientations