Correspondents' Correspondence

...And since the '50s the Court has fulfilled this function: It has been a more consistent champion of "egalitarian, libertarian and humanitarian ideals" than the other two branches...

...Yet here in Rome the shops specializing in haute couture are teeming with customers despite the exorbitant prices, and the traffic is as unbearable as always even though a liter of gasoline costs 300 lire (approximately $1.75 per gallon...

...such as reapportionment...

...But to an even greater degree it was the fact that the other branches of government and the people accepted the arrangement because the Court, through its refusal to participate in partisan issues, had been seen as being above politics...

...But the constituent bodies of the various political parties are held in tight rein by their national headquarters...

...The June 15 vote will be the first since the September 1973 "historic compromise" offer made by PCI Secretary-General Enrico Berlinguer to the Christian Democrats...

...Moreover, it seems to me that most Americans will not long tolerate the taking away of broad policymaking powers from the people they have presumably given them to, regardless of the Court's good intentions...

...The matter that concerned Cox was not Watergate, however, but the role the Supreme Court has come to play in America...

...Mike Bernick...

...Indeed, the delay in completing a preparatory document for the Congress and Belgrade's outright rejection of any Soviet diktat clearly indicate that even the groundwork for this event has been complex and at times stormy.-Silvio F. Senigallia Cox on the Court Oxford-Not since the University basketball team finished its season had so many of the American students at Oxford gathered together...

...It is fearful of a dramatic break there between the Army rulers and Mario Soares' Socialist party, followed by the creation of an overt military dictatorship with the Communists being granted a privileged role they could not dare to reject...

...Particularly concerned with the subject of school integration, Cox noted that the Court had not only required cities to halt discriminatory practices but had, in addition, stipulated that redistricting and busing be employed to achieve a racial balance...

...The repercussions of the latest Portuguese developments are bound to be felt, too, at the congress of the European Communist parties slated to be held after the closing of the current Geneva conference on European security...

...Still, the framers of that document had vested the lawmaking powers in the Congress and the President, and had clearly intended the Supreme Court's participation in policymaking to be limited...

...Berlinguer perceives PCI's interests in a European context and is aware that the barriers of anti-Communism in Italy will not fall-as they must if the PCI is to get a share of power...

...Fanfani is staking his political future on rejecting any such agreement and denouncing the Communists in terms that have not been heard since the end of the Cold War...

...Dropping below that mark (their 1972 percentage was 38) would force the DC to choose either a further swing to the Left, eventually leading to the compromesso storico, or a political shift that would jeopardize their relations with the Socialists (PSI...

...The rigid, orthodox line of the Czechs, Hungarians and East Germans can be expected to clash with the softer Italian, Yugoslav and Spanish positions based on polycentrism, autonomy and collaboration with the non-Communist Left...

...It has also tackled controversies previous Courts had explicitly rejected as being too "political...

...But then Cox added: "Maybe my service in the Executive branch has led me to see the matter differently than the average citizen...

...Since the early '50s, Cox argued, the Court has been influencing a broader range of public life than ever before-including the operation of schools, prisons and health centers...

...Following the final lecture, when everyone else who had gathered around Cox to congratulate him had left, I approached the former Special Watergate Prosecutor to register my reservations about his views...

...His opinion is only one of 220 million that the Executive branch has to take into account, and his elected representative has tens of thousands of other constituents...

...Berlinguer has understandably picked Fanfani as his main target, maintaining that with different DC leadership an accommodation would be possible...

...The line between a judicial and political decision has never been clear, he conceded, the application of the Constitution leaving much room for interpretation...

...After raising all these critical points about the Court's present approach, though, Cox then dismissed them with a brief argument...

...Significantly, the PCI has been devoting much of its attention to international issues, especially the situation in Portugal...

...Protections against majority tyranny are certainly necessary, yet if one believes in democracy one has to grant elected officials considerable leeway to order public affairs, whatever their ineptness...

...When the Mayor of Venice, a Left-wing Christian Democrat (DC), came out a few months ago in favor of including Communist (PCI) representatives in the city's Center-Left coalition, he was promptly rebuked by DC leader Amintore Fanfani, and his proposal came to naught...

...Municipalities are legally autonomous in Italy: The central government may intervene through an appointed commissioner only when no local government can be formed...

...As the government takes on these new powers, some agency must guarantee its exercising them fairly and efficiently...

...Cox responded that this might be true in a New England town or small state, but the size of the United States today had fundamentally altered the nature of political participation...

...Christian Democratic spokesmen are resigned to some losses, but view 35 per cent as their safety margin...

...Still, the present campaign will be austere in the sense that it will be shorter than previous ones...

...And observers seem to agree that it will hold its level of support at 28 per cent, or possibly score minor gains...

...The "different Italian model" heralded by the PCI, he wrote, could hardly be credible should the first Western specimen of a government run by the workers' movement follow the Eastern European pattern...

...While most former decisions had been prohibitory in nature-striking down unconstitutional laws, methods employed by law-enforcement agencies or questionable corporate dealings-the past two decades have witnessed more judgments ordering the initiation of specific remedial policies...

...Hoping to learn the inside story of Watergate, they came on four successive weeks to hear Archibald Cox deliver the Chichele lectures sponsored by All-Souls College...

...Another frequently heard word these days is "politicization," underlying the essential nature of elections that should be concerned with the solution of regional problems through efficient, independent, nonsectarian administration...

...The modern industrial state requires government intervention in certain economic and social institutions, he said, to insure that every citizen has at least the basic necessities of life...

...The average citizen no longer feels he can, and in reality no longer can, influence national policy significantly...

...Furthermore, it was overseeing the formulation of these reassignment schemes, reserving the right of final approval...

...In a recent editorial in the Genoa daily Il Lavoro, a member of the PSI directorate bluntly pressed for the PCI's condemnation of "Socialist lynching by Portuguese Communists...

...By entering into the management of a wide range of social problems and frequently overruling Congress and the White House in the process, it threatened to undermine its legitimacy and might open the way for the other branches to impose constitutional limitations on its authority...

...And in many of these rulings it has gone decidedly beyond the "arbitrator" function established by its predecessors...

...Unlike austerity, politicization is not an empty word here...

...While I am in agreement with most of the Court's recent decisions, particularly on school integration, I am disturbed by the posture it has assumed...

...Italy's Elections Rome-The June 15 Italian elections for new regional and city governments are to be held, we have been continuously told, under the sign of "austerity"-a word that has been fashionable ever since the inception of the energy crisis...

...This trend of increased involvement with policymaking could seriously weaken the Court's ability to carry out the valuable tasks it has traditionally performed: preventing the other two branches from violating an individual's liberties, and-as in the case of Watergate-preventing them from defying the law for their own purposes...

...unless they are simultaneously lowered elsewhere...

...Or, more precisely, whether it is overstepping the proper boundaries of judicial restraint...

...In part, Cox noted, it was the American belief in natural law that had resulted in the Court dominating these areas...

...Moreover, the parties are committed to cutting down the truly extravagant expenditures that keep their balances chronically in the red and their administrators busy seeking public and private financial support...

...The Lisbon events are also affecting the PCI-PSI relations...

...The PCI is not very worried about the outcome of the balloting...