Sport and Constitution in the framework of recent legal reforms in Italy

Abstract

This paper analyses L. 1/2023, which positions sporting activities among the values protected by the Italian Constitution. To that end, this same law adds a further paragraph to Article 33 of the Constitution which underlines: firstly, the educational value of sport and its links with the formation and development of the person; secondly, the social value of sporting activities, as sporting activities contribute to the aggregation and inclusion of individuals (or of groups of individuals) who face various kinds of disadvantage; and thirdly, the value of promoting the psychophysical well-being of individuals which connects sport to health, where health is intended in its broadest sense and not just as lack of disease. The last paragraph of Article 33 of the Constitution is generic in scope and does not take into account the type of activity carried out or the individuals engaged in it. Hence the deduction that sporting activities may be among the primary fundamental rights of the individual, as common interpretative guidelines had already stated before L. 1/2023. The new constitutional provision is also prescriptive in scope, in the sense that it commits the Legislator and other State powers (including social entities providing services of general interest) to pursue the implicit purposes deriving from the recognition of sport’s value, and may constitute a basis for invalidating legislative provisions that go against it. Finally, L. 1/2023 anchors the new wording of the Constitution to a wide range of sources in the supranational and national legal systems. In this regard, the acts, guidelines and instruments from the UN, the Council of Europe and the EU should be taken into account. While at a national level, the provisions of the recent reform that carried out a comprehensive and structural review of the sporting legal system in Italy are particularly interesting, the new constitutional framework equally appears consistent with the provisions relating to sport found in foreign constitutions.