In this book, Edmondo Bruti Liberati, former president of the National Magistrates’ Association (ANM) and member of the Higher Council of the Magistrature (the Italian magistrates’ self-ruling body), gives readers an outline of institutional events concerning the Italian magistrature from the implementation of the 1948 Republican Constitution up to the present. He does so from the standpoint of Democratic Magistrature, the most advanced current in the ANM, of which he had been one of the most prestigious exponents, and by critically assessing the reforms it promoted and/or applied. This allows him to reveal the numerous tensions that the judicial body experienced (and continues to experience), dispelling the vision of a monolithic magistrature that is wholly cohesive internally and bringing to light the clashes between opposing intellectual positions regarding the role of magistrates. Bruti Liberati's long presence within and deep knowledge of the judicial apparatus (dating back to 1970) has also allowed him to link its operational modalities and internal life (as revealed in meetings of the Higher Council and ANM congresses) with political and social changes happening in the country. This provides an effective synthesis of the relationship between the judiciary and society, which gives the volume its title.

The need to compile an ‘external’ history of the magistrature is reflected in the structure of the volume, which is divided into seven chapters, reflecting the seven decades since the advent of the republican constitution. The first chapter analyses how strongly the constitutional text disrupted the judicial organisation, particularly through the introduction of the Higher Council of the Magistrature, a body safeguarding not only the judiciary's external independence vis-à-vis political power but also its independence within the legal system itself, protecting the work of the judges from hierarchical control. This reform, however, remained unenforced in the early years of the constitution's application because of the clear hostility of the higher magistrature, which was composed mainly of members recruited during the Fascist era. The constitutional principles of the magistrature started to emerge in their full potential during the 1950s and 1960s – the subject of the second chapter. This arose not so much through the Higher Council of Magistrature, which came into force in 1959, but rather through the establishment of the Constitutional Court three years previously, which also imposed compliance with the constitutional principles upon a reluctant Court of Cassation, and allowed the lower court judges to raise questions of unconstitutionality, undermining the hierarchical principle. These were also the years that saw the first women join the magistrature and, at the same time, establishment within the ANM of the current of Democratic Magistrature, which would subsequently promote a different emphasis on openness to society. These are all elements that would find a moment of synthesis with the final motion of the ANM congress in 1965 (held in Gardone), which is traditionally considered in the historiography to be the programmatic manifesto of a different generation of magistrates, promoters of a political-constitutional dimension of judicial activity. This new intake of judges would continue to offset an older magistrature, who clung to positions of power and promulgated some astonishing sentences, which are mentioned in the book.

The 1970s, examined in chapter three, saw the magistrature subject to contrasting tendencies: on one side, there is the extraordinary activism of the magistrates, expanding the role of jurisprudence towards adapting law to the profound transformations society had undergone during this decade, and towards defending unprotected social groups, especially in terms of work-related injuries and occupational diseases. The magistrature were also in the front line in the fight against terrorism, paying a very high price in terms of lives lost, refusing to entrust trials to special courts and trying to adapt to the emergency by introducing teamwork in the public prosecutor's office. However, these innovations clashed with more conservative sectors, who were trying to purge dissent through disciplinary measures, using all the legal instruments at their disposal to block most of the investigations where political power was involved (cases involving massacres connected with the so-called ‘strategy of tension’ or with illegal party funding). The fourth chapter, on the 1980s, considers the emergence of an open clash with political power. It was the discovery of the Loggia P2 that clarified the divergent notions of legality during this decade, separating political power from the magistrature represented in the Higher Council: the latter intervened firmly in favour of the magistrates involved in the inquiry – contrary to the attitude of the tribunal of Rome towards almost all of the defendants – provoking a very strong reaction against it by the political system of government. This deteriorated even further with the election of Francesco Cossiga as president of the Republic, who – for the full seven years he spent in office – would try to oppose the various initiatives adopted by the Council. The fifth chapter is, of course, entirely focused on the investigations which went down in history under the name of ‘Mani Pulite’ (‘Clean Hands’). In this overhaul of political power, which saw magistrates sentence the whole political class, what stands out are the limits of the criminal process, which should represent only the start of an overhaul of the political system. These limits, in a sense, weaken the judicialisation of politics common to many European democracies at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

The last two chapters of the book are dedicated to the intense clashes between the judiciary and the various governments led by Silvio Berlusconi, starting from 1994: of particular interest is Bruti Liberati's analysis of the reform of the judicial order, brought to fruition in 2005 by Roberto Castelli, the Minister for Justice. This is analysed with the advantage of personal experience, since Bruti Liberati was president of the ANM at that time.

In conclusion, this book represents a rigorous and sincere attempt at third-party introspection focused on the specific deontology of judicial power advocated by Democratic Magistrature, conducted without indulging in sterile victimisation or acritical acceptance.