Emilio Betti in difesa dell’oralità. Incontri e scontri sulla riforma del codice di procedura civile

Civil procedural law has represented a constant interest of Emilio Betti over the span of at least twenty years (1916-1936). This is a profile of his work that is still little studied, although in this field too he had the opportunity to experience his reformist vocation. Premised a reconnaissance of the stages of his scientific and didactic itinerary on the subject, the essay aims to deepen Betti’s attitude towards the principle of orality and the related reforms of the Italian civil process, following two main threads: on the one hand, the Observations on the project of the Mortara Subcommission and on the Carnelutti Project of 1926, to which, according to the thesis set out in the essay, a founding value is recognized in Betti’s intellectual path; on the other hand, by comparing the thought expressed in this contribution with the Milanese lessons of civil procedural law. The purpose of the essay is to include Betti in a more complete way in the debate of the early twentieth century, dominated by the figures of Chiovenda, Carnelutti, Calamandrei and Redenti, with respect to which consonances and divergences, encounters and clashes are identified.