La libertà di coscienza nella pluralità degli ordinamenti giuridici

[Machine translation] In Europe, the history of freedom of conscience began with the affirmation of the first forms of religious freedom induced by Luther's Reformation and finds its initial theoretical and political justification in Enlightenment thought and in the French Revolution. After World War II, the value of individual autonomy re-emerges in the guarantee of the right to freedom of conscience, solemnly proclaimed in 1948 in art. 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Today, the protection of freedom of conscience represents the foundation of every democratic society. Without the guarantee of inner freedom, the person cannot, in fact, self-determine in spaces of freedom delimited by rights recognized at the supranational and national levels. However, the protection of personal convictions seems very delicate in pluralist societies, in which different and often conflicting beliefs coexist, before which political systems do not always seem capable of guaranteeing an effective and democratic balance.