Revista da EMERJ - V. 21 - N. 3 - Setembro/Dezembro - 2019 - Tomo 1

79  R. EMERJ, Rio de Janeiro, v. 21, n. 3, t. 1, p. 72-86, set.-dez., 2019  TOMO 1 too much tolerated by the reform of 1950; proceedings had been perhaps too much tightened by the reform of 1973, regulating special proceedings about labor disputes. Each reform had rationales and objectives that are typical of procedural reforms, especially in a Civil Law country. On the one hand, reforms try to balance access to the courts and effective judicial protection of rights, on the other, they promote the right to be heard. In a few cases, laws introducing new substantive rights, or remarkable changes to existing rights, also included new procedural devices in order to ensure effective judicial protection of such rights. 24 The last remarkable reform before the advent of the Doing Business Project consisted in the introduction of special proceedings concerning corporate disputes in 2003 25 . It marked a new approach to the regulation of ordinary proceedings, providing a number of written exchanges between the lawyers before the court is addressed inorder tomanage the proceedings. This kind of made-in-Italy ‘adversarial’ pleading from the outset bristled with difficulties for lawyers, and proved to be inefficient over time and therefore doomed to failure. It was abolished in 2009. 26 Yet, it was still in tune with the Italian approach to legislative changes in the field of civil procedure, as to three fundamental aspects: a) since the reform of 1973 (at the latest), the idea that the same procedural rules should be available for all civil law suits (i.e. the “transsubstantive” character of procedural rules, to speak in U.S. jargon) has been fundamentally rejected and an approach heading toward a “differentiated judicial protection of rights” has been adopted, with a view to ensuring a more effective judicial protection of rights ( tutela giurisdizionale differenziata , an approach and expression coined by Andrea Proto Pisani) 27 ; the reform of 2003 followed this approach, linking the introduction of new proceedings to changes in the field of corporate law; b) the purposes of legislative changes were quite typical of procedural reforms i.e. a more speedy and effective dispute resolution, in tune with the fair trial guarantee, without any reference to the country’s 24 Art. 28, Law no. 300 of 1970, Statuto dei lavoratori. 25 Art. 12, Law 366/2001 and D. lgs 5/2003. 26 Law no. 69 of 2009. 27 In recent years, however, A. Proto Pisani seems to have changed his mind on this point, in light of misleading applications by the lawgiver over time, cf. Riflessioni critiche sulla tutela giurisdizionale differenziata , in Lavoro e diritto , 2014, 537.