"John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it." So, according to tradition, President Andrew Jackson declared his displeasure at the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the case of Worcester v. Georgia in 1832.* Last week, in the face of similar intransigence on the part of Demo-Christian Premier Antonio Segni and his government, peppery, 78-year-old Enrico de Nicola, president of Italy's fledgling Constitutional Court, struck back with an effectiveness that would have won a smile of approval from stern old John Marshall.
Almost from the day of its adoption, the provision in Italy's 1948 constitution calling for establishment of...