E-Government and Digitalization

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.

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 Draghi government has taken office at a time when the labour market, characterised by the decisive influence of information technologies and a high degree of mobility, is undergoing great changes. The emergence of the pandemic, which had been underway for almost a year when the Draghi government was sworn in, has hit the labour market with the destruction of jobs and the failure to create new ones, while at the same time accentuating the disruptive processes underway (IT, mobility). The phenomenon is supranational, and the European Union is acting on two levels: facing up to the emergency (SURE, Youth initiative, EU Next Generation, etc.) and intervening on the basis of a strategy focused on investment in information technologies. It is these technologies which are changing production processes and how trades and professions are carried out, reshaping the labour market while making it necessary for workers to upskill and have IT profiles and creating a strong asymmetry between workers and their employment prospects. The Premier’s speech and the government’s programme are taking this problem into account: on the one hand, they have announced reforms of the assegno di riallocazione reallocation allowance and of job centres, on the other hand, they are talking about strengthening infrastructure (broadband, 5G) and the transversality of the Digital Transition. All of which seems appropriate. The hope is that all this will be done in the European strategic context and that the employment market becomes the omnipresent pivot of the transversal transition.

The essential points of the reasoning developed in this article are: Covid-19 has brought to the fore the role played by the administration as a bridge in the (conflictual) confrontation between the power of science and political power; the health emergency has cast light on the importance of the functioning of parliamentary institutions for the defence of democracy because the executive branch (objectively) gets the upper hand. The administration of the European Parliament is a very interesting case study in this respect because it has succeeded in coping with the emergency thanks to several factors; EPA implemented a programme of structural digitisation of the European Parliament in recent years. Finally, EPA worked for activating an administrative capacity to manage the “unprecedented measures” that had to be adopted: this capacity was achieved by carrying out the actions within the strict framework of the governance of the European Parliament and under its permanent scrutiny.

In light of the numerous restrictive measures adopted in Italy, as in many other countries, to contain the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, the authors examine the terms with which the use of the “App Immuni” could be qualified as a legitimate condition for carrying out activities at risk of infection. Digital contact tracing could give greater effectiveness to the measures taken to contain the epidemic and, therefore, lead to a better calibration of the limitations to personal freedoms. In this perspective, the authors’ attention is focused on analyzing the functioning of the app Immuni, especially in view of protecting personal data and in light of the analysis of the relevant European standards, also analyzed through the prism of the principle of proportionality.

Since 2009, Italian local authorities – and, more broadly, Italian public administrations – have faced a progressive increase of transparency obligations with regard to the publication of administrative documents on institutional websites as well as concerning their internal organization and activities. Prompted by an Italian privacy authority’s sanction based on the illicit online treatment of personal information, this paper analyses the correlation between the quantity of these obligations as well as the correct compliance thereof, and employees’ level of ICT training. The percentage and the characteristics of the employees that have acquired an adequate ICT training – with a particular reference to their age – represent a clear provisional indicator of their capability of complying with the obligations of publication and transparency without violating the privacy rights of the documents’ subjects and whose information is being published online.

D.L. n. 174/2012 details the internal control system in local authorities envisaged by D.Lgs. n. 286/1999, providing for a preventive and a subsequent phase of administrative regularity control. According to art. 147-bis T.U.E.L., subsequent control is an internal arbitral control, implemented during the following phase of the formation of the act, under the direction of the municipal secretary. It must be ensured according to general principles of corporate audit and methods defined within the organization's autonomy. Acts subject to control include: expenditure commitment determinations, entry verification documents, expenditure settlement documents, contracts and other administrative documents. Subsequent check concerns legitimacy and cost-effectiveness of administrative action. Nevertheless, accounting principles do not properly integrate the purpose of the subsequent check for administrative regularity, as they are concentrated only in regularity check of the determinations, contracts and deeds subject to control and not also accounting check. Art. 147-bis.3 affirms that the municipal secretary must send control results to: units evaluating employees’ results, for example useful documents for the evaluation, the Auditors, the City Council and the various heads of services, along with directives to comply with in case of irregularity. Subsequent check processes may take advantage of digital transformation since it is realized through a double paper-digital track. Thus, we could hypothesize the development of an ad hoc IT platform. As an outcome, there could be several benefits such as the dematerialisation and progressive digitization of the procedure. Besides, all the information of the authority would be better integrated, while optimizing the data acquired, avoiding duplications in document requests and allowing for a green transition.

The article discusses issues concerning the identification of a Public Administration’s certified electronic email (CEM) box, which is valid for the transmission of judicial proceedings. Firstly, we illustrate the legislation - complex, uncoordinated and unclear - regulating the delivery of judicial proceedings via the digital domicile of the P.A. Furthermore, we examine the case law – still fluctuating - which has been formed on the subject; we also indicate the hypothesis in which the notification of judicial proceedings to a CEM address other than the one provided for this purpose by the Administration is considered to be fully valid and effective, and the legal reasons for this interpretation.

On 8 April 2020, the EU Commission published a Recommendation on the principles to be followed in drawing up the guidelines to be used in the development of the new digital technologies that are emerging in the different Member States to counter the Covid-19 emergency ("toolbox").

The article proposes new forms of participation and financing of public works that ensure the involvement of the population thanks to the solutions made possible by blockchain. The contribution starts from the consideration that the financing of public initiatives affects administrations and citizens closely, both as users and as taxpayers. The city is thus understood as an innovation laboratory, where virtuous solutions can be experimented and implemented while maintaining a close connection to the population. To this end, concrete solutions are proposed for innovative, traceable and sustainable financing of public infrastructures, activated with the new tools developed on blockchain technology.