Sciarra Silvana

Silvana Sciarra, the first woman elected by the Parliament as a Judge of the Italian Constitutional Court, began her mandate in November 2014, after holding the position of Full Professor of Labor Law and European Social Law at the University of Florence and the European University Institute. She is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Florence and was elected President on September 20, 2022.

She graduated in Law from the University of Bari, defending a thesis under the supervision of Professor Gino Giugni.

On May 31, 2017, she was awarded the honor of “Cavaliere di Gran Croce dell’Ordine al merito della Repubblica Italiana” by the President of the Republic.

By Decision of the Council of the European Union (EU) 2021/2232 of December 14, 2021, starting from March 1, 2022, and for a period of 4 years, she was designated, in accordance with Article 255 TFEU, as a member of the committee established to provide an opinion on the suitability of candidates for the positions of judge and advocate general of the Court of Justice and the General Court.

She was a Harkness Fellow at UCLA and Harvard Law School (1974-1976), a Fulbright Fellow at UCLA (1985), and a Visiting Professor at various universities, including Warwick (Leverhulme Professor), Columbia Law School (BNL Professor), Cambridge (Arthur Goodhart Chair in Legal Science 2006-2007), Stockholm, Lund, University College London, and LUISS Rome.

She taught at the Faculty of Economic and Banking Sciences at the University of Siena.

From 1994 to 2003, she held the chair of Labor Law and European Social Law at the European University Institute in Fiesole. She served as Director of the Law Department (1995-1996) and also coordinated the Gender Studies program (2002-2003).

At the European University Institute, she coordinated international projects and edited publications, including “Public Services and Citizenship in European Law” with M. Freedland (Oxford University Press 1998), “Labour Law in the Courts. National Judges and the European Court of Justice” (Hart 2001), and “Employment Policy and the Regulation of Part-time Work in the European Union” with P. Davies and M. Freedland (Cambridge University Press 2004).

She collaborated with the European Commission on numerous research projects.

Together with a group of South African jurists, she conducted comparative research, the results of which are reflected in the book “Laws against Strikes. The South African Experience in an International and Comparative Perspective” edited by R. le Roux, B. Hepple, and S. Sciarra (F. Angeli 2015).

She received an Honorary Doctorate in Law from the University of Stockholm in 2006 and from Hasselt in 2012.

For several years, she served as co-director of the journal “Giornale di Diritto del Lavoro e di Relazioni Industriali.”

She has recently published various articles and works on topics related to constitutional law, labor law, and European law.