IL BENE DELLA DIGNITÀ UMANA IN SOCCORSO DELLA LEGGE MERLIN? : SULLA SENTENZA 141/2019 DELLA CORTE COSTITUZIONALE IN MATERIA DI FAVOREGGIAMENTO E RECLUTAMENTO DELLA PROSTITUZIONE

The Italian Constitutional Court (141/2019) rejected the issue on the constitutional legitimacy of the crimes of "recruitment" and "aiding and abetting" prostitution, as proposed by the Court of Appeal of Bari. After a preliminary investigation on the normative regulatory models of voluntary prostitution, as well as on the doubts of constitutional legitimacy expressed by the Court of Appeal, we focus on some critical aspects of the decision. In the Author's perspective, the choice of prostitution has a double nature (sexual and economic) and therefore a multiple constitutional protection. The causal links between the behavior of facilitating prostitution and the dangers to freedom, security and dignity of the prostitutes are questionable. The notions of human dignity and vulnerability, especially if interpreted in an objective sense, are unsuitable for performing the functions that are suited to the “legal good” in criminal matters and lend themselves to being used in a paternalistic view. Against the risks of a criminal law as “guardian of protected adults”, the relationships between sexual self-determination and the dignity of the person should be considered according to a general principle of secularism.