Italian Constitutional Court (Corte costituzionale italiana), No. 508/2000, 13 November 2000

Criminal protection of religious sentiment. Defamation of the State religion.

Art. 3 Italian Constitution
Art. 8 Italian Constitution
Art. 402 Criminal Code

1. By virtue of the fundamental principles of the equality of all citizens without distinction of religion (Art. 3 of the Constitution) and of the equal freedom before the law of all religious denominations (Art. 8 of the Constitution), the State's attitude cannot but be one of equidistance and impartiality towards the latter, without the quantitative fact of the more or less widespread adherence to this or that religious denomination having any relevance whatsoever (Judgments No. 925 of 1988, No. 440 of 1995 and No. 329 of 1997) and the greater or lesser extent of the social reactions that may follow the violation of the rights of one or another religious denomination (Judgment No. 329 of 1997), the equal protection of the conscience of each person who recognises himself in a faith, whatever the confession to which he belongs, being required.
 

2. This position of equidistance and impartiality is a reflection of the principle of secularism that the Constitutional Court has drawn from the system of constitutional provisions, a principle that has risen to the rank of "supreme principle" (Judgments No. 203 of 1989, No. 259 of 1990, No. 195 of 1993 and No. 329 of 1997), characterising in a pluralistic sense the form of our State, within which different faiths, cultures and traditions have to coexist in equal freedom (Judgment No. 440 of 1995).