Starting from a decision by the Criminal Court of Cassation of July 2020, the essay examines some evolutionary
lines in the use of interpretive methodologies by Italian courts as a consequence of the emergency triggered by the
Covid-19 pandemic. The essay focuses, in particular, on the characterization of the pandemic as an "extra ordinem
fact" which justifies ad hoc interpretive methodologies in criminal law, and on the qualification of balancing as a
form of “adaptive interpretation”. The point made in the essay is that identifying balancing as a form of adaptive
interpretation generates the “hyper-constitutionalisation” of the legal system, a phenomenon whose effects are
critically considered.