Fides et Ratio Award for an Internationally Renowned Constitutional Scholar
Marta Cartabia – an outstanding Italian jurist, legal reformer, and academic lecturer, currently also serving as President of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) – has become the third recipient in the history of the Nicolaus Copernicus Fides et Ratio Award, a prestigious distinction granted by the Marshal of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Region. The award honors individuals whose scholarly and creative work engages with the dialogue between faith and reason, a concept fundamental to our civilization.
She graduated in law from the University of Milan and earned her doctorate at the European University Institute. In 2004, she became a professor at the University of Milano-Bicocca. Specializing in constitutional law, she has served on the Italian Constitutional Court since 2011 (acting as Vice President from 2014 to 2019 and subsequently as President). She is also a co-author of reforms to the Italian criminal justice and civil procedure systems. Among other initiatives, she advocates alternatives to imprisonment, including house arrest and community service.
The legal solutions she proposes, rooted in Catholic social teaching, have gained international recognition. Since 2021, Professor Cartabia has been a member of the Venice Commission – a highly respected advisory body of the Council of Europe composed exclusively of leading experts – and in December 2025 she was elected its President. Also in 2021, she became a full member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.
The first recipient (2024) of the Fides et Ratio Award was Grzegorz Ryś, Metropolitan Archbishop of Kraków, one of Poland’s most recognizable Catholic clergy members, a charismatic pastor, and a respected medieval historian specializing in the history of the Catholic Church.
In 2025, the award was presented to Joseph Halevi Horowitz Weiler, a world-class intellectual, lawyer, thinker, researcher, academic lecturer, and author of books translated into many languages.
See also:
- Fides et Ratio Award 2025: Joseph Weiler
- Cain and Abel: The First Murder and the Birth of Natural Law (lecture by Joseph Weiler, Toruń, 3 June 2025)
The ceremonial gala during which Professor Marta Cartabia will receive the award will take place on 1 June in the representative halls of the Dąmbski Palace. On the same day, the laureate will deliver the inaugural lecture at Colloquium Charitativum Novum, an international gathering of Christian intellectuals inspired by the historic Colloquium Charitativum held in Toruń in 1645.
Participants confirmed for the event also include, among others: Cardinal Grzegorz Ryś; Joseph Weiler; former Polish Prime Minister and Ambassador to the Holy See Hanna Suchocka; member of the parliament of the German state of Saxony-Anhalt Stephen Gerhard Stehli; Finnish-Greek theologian, musician, and auxiliary bishop of Tallinn Jaakko Olkinuora; British clergyman, theologian, and astrophysicist David Wilkinson; Swedish diplomat and lawyer Jan Henrik Amberg; and distinguished Maltese theologian, philosopher, and bioethicist Emanuel Agius.
Beata Krzemińska
Spokesperson of the Marshal’s Office
13 May 2026