“Porre un freno al dispotismo di giudicare de’ Tribunali”. Assolutismo regio, arbitrio giudiziario e motivazione delle sentenze nei dispacci napoletani del 1774

In 1774, the secretary of State of the Kingdom of Naples, Bernardo Tanucci, issued a dispaccio; a decree that obliged the Neapolitan High Courts to motivate their judgement. This statute was expected to limit the arbitrary power of courts and to centralize powers in the hands of the King, in accordance with the Enlightenment spirt of the time. Naturally, the Kingdom's judiciary was reluctant to accept this reform and tried to oppose its implementation in every way. In this paper we will try to highlight the causes of the failure of the Tanucci's decrees, considering also the dispaccio of 1791, which repealed the obligation to motivate sentences and reduced the scope of the dispaccio of 1774.