The relevance of the iura novit curia principle in the Vatican City State

Abstract

The Vatican legal system is well known for its peculiar features, which are unknown to any other State legal system and which make it necessary - also and above all in the administration of justice - to have a full mastery, first and foremost, of its close relationship with canon law and the implications that derive from it: without, at the same time, conflating levels that are distinct in themselves. The same can be said of the factors that have led the State across the Tiber to become increasingly integrated - albeit with its ineliminable specificities - into the international context. Starting from the most recent developments in Vatican justice in relation to one of the cases that has attracted the greatest attention of commentators worldwide in recent years, the essay aims to highlight how the correct framing of such issues is far from being the result of mere academic punctiliousness, but rather constitutes a basic and indispensable necessity, particularly for those who operate within the Vatican judicial system.