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Il trasferimento della norma canonica alla norma civile attraverso lo strumento pattizio: l’esempio di Israele

Summary: The legal device of renvoi, or (correspondingly) reception, which refers to the norms of a different legal order, has considerable significance also for the relations between the canonical and the civil legal orders. The current canon law imports significant portions of the civil law into the canonical legal order, notably contract law, while the concrete effectiveness of the canon law in today’s world depends to a large extent on ensuring that its norms are valid and enforceable in the civil forum as well. The “Legal Personality Agreement,” which the Holy See made with the State of Israel, achieves the latter purpose to a very high degree. It gains for ecclesiastical legal persons full recognition in Israeli law, in their original identity, and together with the canon law that governs them. At the same time it also resolves a long-standing ambiguity concerning the relation of canon law to the Israeli judicial system, by clarifying that questions of canon law before the Israeli courts are questions of fact, like any “foreign” law.