Fundamental Rights and Freedoms

The contribution deals with the application of the principle of proportionality in the jurisprudence developed by national courts, the Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights to sanctions in the context of urban planning and construction. To this end, it first analyses the traditional categories of sanctions as they have been developed by national case-law. Secondly, it evaluates whether and how the principles developed by CJEU and ECHR have led to change.

In the Italian legal system – a constitutional State that has emerged from the ferocious totalitarianisms of the 20th century – access to judges is filtered by a control of worthiness that is based on indeterminate concepts, namely variable and personal tables of values. It is therefore possible – necessary, perhaps – to use the paradigm of legitimacy to argue for a broadening of access. It is necessary to loosen, if not quite sever, the hitherto tight and suffocating bond between the proximity of the subject to the physical place where the administrative decision impacts, and the actionability of the claim. There is a minimum objective, recently framed by the Plenary Assembly of the Council of State: to understand vicinitas in terms of contiguity that is no longer only material, but also axiological. And then a more ambitious one: to “de-subjectivise” the claim, to the point of configuring trans-subjective rights, that is, “without master”.

The article aims to explore the role of oral hearing in Slovenian and Italian administrative procedural law. In both countries the oral hearing is a pivotal moment in the judicial review of administrative decisions. The study aims to identify common elements in each system to determine a unitary content of oral hearing as a human right.

Public administration is immersed in a major technological disruption that raises interesting questions and legal debates. The use of artificial intelligence is undoubtedly one of them. However, this phenomenon must be analysed in the context of the general transformation that the public sector is undergoing, the so-called “public governance”, with all that this implies, in short, a new relationship between citizens and public authorities, which marks the scenario in which the current Administration must act. Bearing in mind that the very essence of administrative law hinges on a constant duality, this paper analyses the use of artificial intelligence in the public sector, seeking the eternal balance between efficiency and guarantees.

In 2025, the obligation for Austrian public officials to maintain confidentiality about all facts of which they have obtained knowledge exclusively from their official activity, enshrined in Article 20 (3) of the Federal Constitutional Law (B-VG) and thus of constitutional status, will celebrate its centenary. Since 1987, flanked by an obligation to impart information pursuant to Article 20 (4) B-VG, it guarantees the protection of information acquired by the public administration when communicating with citizens. With a view to a transparent administration, several attempts have been made since the beginning of the millennium to replace official secrecy with freedom of information in order to achieve a “transparent state”. However, despite the high degree of digitalization of the Austrian public administration, the path to this goal remains still challenging.

This article critically analyzes the regulation of administrative penalties, starting with Decree Law No. 19/2020, that have the intention of sanctioning conduct that has the potential to increase the spread of Covid-19.

The use of algorithms and A.I. systems in administrative action has strongly challenged the requirements of administrative due process. Due to the absence of national statutory rules on administration by algorithm, administrative courts have established a set of principles (the so-called “principles of algorithmic legality”) in order to protect the legal position of citizens involved in administrative procedures, borrowing them mostly from the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Case law specifically requires public bodies to comply with: a) the citizen’s right to access to meaningful information concerning the automated decision-making; b) the citizen’s right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing; c) the prohibition of algorithmic bias. After a brief overview of the content of these principles, this paper aims to analyse the relation between them and Article 21-octies, par. 2 of Law No. 241/1990. This paper questions whether they have been understood by the courts as reinforced procedural rules to avoid the “weakening” effect, provided by Article 21-octies with regards to procedural impropriety of non-discretionary decisions. In particular, this paper questions whether the strengthening of the procedural rules could be aimed at counterbalancing the lack of substantive legality, due to the exercise of implied powers by the public bodies in using algorithms, or whether it should be based on a different legal reasoning.

To what extent, and in what ways, is judicial review shaped by its specific constitutional context? Recent developments in Australian judicial review of administrative and adjudicative powers may be of some interest in exploring this terrain. This paper discusses the impact of Australia’s basic law, the Constitution, on judicial application of a concept central to judicial review: invalidity. It argues that the full impact of the separation of judicial power in Australia’s Constitution on thinking about the status of “invalid” decisions has yet to be revealed; and indicates some potential areas where doctrinal adjustments may be necessary to reflect and integrate the ‘constitutionalised’ role of invalidity.

Judicial systems are experiencing a period of strong institutional and social pressure to improve, on the one hand, their effectiveness and efficiency and on the other, to increase their level of transparency and accountability. This is particularly evident in the Italian context, in which the debate regarding the judicial system has always been very heated and where numerous attempts at reform have taken place. Among other things, a new reform of the judicial system is considered the sine qua non for the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). This article aims to explore the dissemination of socio-environmental and sustainability reporting among Italian judicial offices, with particular regard to the factors that facilitate and hinder such practices. To this end, a survey involving 430 offices belonging to the Italian ordinary justice system was conducted. The survey, based on 57 valid responses, highlights a very limited dissemination of sustainability reporting, despite the fact that there is a good knowledge of its function and therefore an awareness of its potential usefulness. Interesting results are highlighted in reference to the factors hindering or facilitating the related processes. Last but not least, the paper suggests some implications for policy makers and public administration that are willing to take this path.

Boris Johnson was swept to power as prime minister of the United Kingdom with an unassailable majority of eighty members of parliament (MPs) after the general election in December 2019. The man who was to ‘get Brexit done’ seemed in complete control of his party, the House of Commons and the country. One of the most controversial prime ministers in our history, Johnson was propelled from one cause célèbre to another. His rule exposed weaknesses in the contemporary UK constitution and how those weaknesses can be exposed by a politician determined not to be bound by conventional constraints on his office. The following tracks Johnson’s downfall and resignation and suggests areas in prime ministerial governance that need to be addressed by the incoming UK prime minister.