Francesco Vigano': Law as a Way to Fulfill an Ideal of Justice

FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND PROTECTION OF THE WEAK ARE THE FOCUS OF THE NEW FULL PROFESSOR OF CRIMINAL LAW'S INTERESTS

When asked about his parents’ job, Francesco Viganò’s 10 year-old son said that “daddy teaches Criminal Law, but mommy is the real deal, she’s a judge”. The Professor laughs while recounting his son’s claim. He is a real deal, too. A newly-appointed Full Professor of Criminal Law at the Department of Legal Studies at Bocconi University, Viganò is fully convinced that you cannot separate legal theory from practice. “Keeping daily contacts with subjects operating in the legal system is eye-opening to the danger of living in an ivory tower. I value the ethical side of Law: it must provide the means to fulfill an ideal of justice”.
 
Law has been a late calling for Viganò. He enrolled at Università degli Studi in Milan with no enthusiasm, just to honor a family tradition and get a job one day, but he was mesmerized by Criminal Law. “I’m fascinated by its dramatic nature and its impact on people’s lives”, he says. “Criminal Law has always to do with the weak: I am talking about the victims of a crime, of course, but also about those affected by the State’s punitive power. The very idea that Law is a means to regulate the exercise of this power is a great intellectual and moral challenge that appeals to our conscience”.
 
After the graduation, Viganò studied at Munich University, “the Mecca for Criminal Law studies back then”, and obtained a PhD in Pavia. He served for nine years as Research  Fellow and then Associate Professor at Brescia University before returning to Milan in 2004. In recent years, his scientific interest has been directed to the protection of human rights at national and supranational levels. “My reflection on fundamental rights is a means to protect the weak. I’d like to put them in an international context and Bocconi University is the right place to do it”.
 
Viganò is regularly invited as a teacher by the Italian High School for the Judiciary, he has been a member of a few Italian ministerial commissions, and is editor-in-chief of the online Law magazine Diritto penale contemporaneo, “a great way to keep touch with the real judicial world”. He is an opera-goer and until recently he was part of Milan’s Bach Choir. “This is a demanding activity, which requires a lot of study. So, at 48, I found myself again in the fear of being quizzed… knowing that I had not studied enough”.

by Claudio Todesco