Die Verfassung der Republik Venedig als System von Checks and Balances

Abstract

This article addresses the constitutional institutions regarded as the source of the Republic of Venice’s long-lasting political stability. Considered a factor in the stabilisation of the community, the focus of this analysis is on the role of secret or anonymous accusation (denuncia segreta) as a means of checking the power of the aristocratic government of Venice. Such an effective instrument, however, can also be criticised as an element of arbitrary rule and state repression. The study examines changing perceptions of the denuncia segreta within the constitutional framework of the Venetian Republic, as well as the relevant legal and cultural conditions surrounding it. From a long-term perspective, one can observe how Venice’s original pluralistic and network-like constitutional structure fell out of equilibrium and thus lost credibility in the 18th century, a time when new concepts of legal rationality and the idea of rule of law emerged from the Enlightenment and rendered the Venetian constitution obsolete.