Earlier court rulings on this subject had stressed the connection
between the provision of support and advance health care directives by
stating that the text of article 408 of the Civil Code makes unequivocal
reference to the mechanism for the planning of one’s life and that the
designation may be accompanied by a series of duties assigned to a
substitute in order to render effective, at a time of incapacity, wishes
that were expressed in a state of awareness and explicitly affirming
that the regulatory provision of the precautionary designation of a support
administrator on the part of the beneficiary in the light of the
rationale of the mechanism itself means that it can be affirmed that
support administration is, currently, the most appropriate mechanism
for the expression of advance health care directives issued in the event
of incapacity:20-23 thus in the view of the judges it is this legal provision
which enables the concrete implementation of the system of protection
set out at the level of substantive law in articles 2, 13 and 32 of the
Italian Constitution, while the instruments through which one could
express one’s wishes remain those of a public or authenticated private
deed, referred to, in fact, by article 408, para. 2 of the Civil Code..