Note e Relazioni

The Council of State confirmed the illegality of the resolution of the Municipality of Seregno which approved a complex corporate integration project between its subsidiary and A2A S.p.A.. The judgment is particularly interesting for two reasons. Firstly, it is confirmed that a public tender must be carried out in circumstances such as those of the present case, and secondly, it remains to be seen what consequences the ruling will have on the operation.

Since the adoption of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, in the context of the European Union the so-called “good administration” has emerged as a new fundamental right: the right to good administration, as written and detailed in Article 41 of the EU Charter. As for its specific contents, there is a clear correspondence with the provisions of Article 97 of the Italian Constitution with respect to the need for impartiality and good performance/efficiency of the Public Administration: two principles of which the best expression is found in Law 241 of 1990 on administrative procedure. It is precisely in this perspective that modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can play a fundamental role in the context of public administration, especially in as far as the possibility to carry out an adequate and prompt investigation process during the administrative procedure is concerned.

The judgment C-761/18 P appealing by Professor Päivi Leino-Sanberg the order of the General Court T-421/17, concerns the refusal of access decided by the European Parliament regarding the dissemination of the content of some trilogues (object themselves of the well-known De Capitani case T-540/15). Thus, the reasoning of the Court allows to make some reflections on the interest of the beneficiaries of the «right of access» to documents, as well the legal consequences of their publication online by a «Third party». Consequently, it leads to argue on the relationship between «administrative transparency» and «right to online access» in the age of digital administration.

With decision no. 6787 of November 3, 2020, the Council of State recognizes and analyzes the legitimacy of the National Anti-Corruption Authority to act, following the legislative amendment of art. 211 of the Code of public contracts (Legislative Decree no. 56/2017) which introduced paragraphs 1-bis and 1-ter to the aforementioned provision.

The contribution analyzes some critical issues in the procedures for entrusting the implementation of telematic booking systems for anti covid-19 vaccines. In particular, the Author emphasizes how the assignment to in-house companies has been unsuccessful. The Author also criticizes the choice of not reusing software solutions already developed for other public administrations. The comment concludes suggesting that the health emergency in progress should rather have led to make the best of the support that private operators could provide.

The paper aims to analyze the judgment C-367/19 with which the Court of Justice expressed itself on the age-old problem that afflicts the public procurement system: the tenders at price of € 0 and the legal basis for their exclusion. The case dealt with by the Court concerns the preliminary ruling proposed by the National Commission for the review of the procedures for the award of public contracts as to whether it was possible to base the provision for the exclusion of a bid at price of € 0 on Article 2, par. 1, § 5, of Directive 2014/24 / EU.

On 9th December 2020, the Portuguese Constitutional Court (‘PCC’) referred its first question for preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Union (‘CJEU’). In a case allegedly entailing the need to balance different Treaty rules such as anti-discriminatory EU tax law (Article 110 TFEU) and environmental protection (Article 191 TFEU), the PCC acknowledged its nature as a court against whose decisions there is no judicial remedy under national law and referred the matter to the CJEU. This ruling shall be read in combination with the judgment in Case no. 422/2020 of 15th July 2020, where the PCC recognized the CJEU’s exclusive competence to interpret and assess the validity of EU law, consequently declaring its lack of jurisdiction to do so. After summarizing the main facts of the case, this article aims at analysing its consequences for the relationship between the PCC and the CJEU.

The article explores the concept and the development of academic freedom in Afghanistan since the fall of the Talibans in 2001. It sets out the main dimensions and the scope of academic freedom as a fundamental right, protected by the Afghan Constitution, as well as the challenge of increasing the number of female academics. It also aims to indicate how Afghan policymakers and legislators should take measures to effectively protect and optimize academic freedom.

With decision n. 466 of 17 September 2020, the first section of Tar Piedmont rejected the request for cancellation, subject to suspension of effectiveness, presented against the decree of the President of the Council of the Piedmont Region, no. 95 of 9 September 2020, with which the obligation for schools to verify that families measured the body temperature of students before the start of teaching was established.

This paper aims to analyze the sentence T-778/16 of the General Court which has annulled the Decision (EU) 2017/1283 which had condemned Apple Inc. to pay about 13 billion in taxes into the Irish tax coffers, not paid following two “tax rulings”, one in 1991 and one in 2007, stipulated between the Irish tax authorities and Apple in order to define the tax base of the two subsidiaries ASI and AOE located in Irish territory. The analysis, in addition to highlighting the reasons that led the Court to annul the decision, will conclude with a brief reflection on the consequences that the judgment could have on the policy, started by the European Union in 2014, of fighting aggressive taxation practices adopted by some Member States.