Organization

Public administration has long been regarded as an obstacle to economic development because of high degrees of complexity, formalism and inefficiency. On the assumption that one can do without an inefficient administration, we are witnessing an expansion of administration by law. To cope with this phenomenon, there have been several reforms aimed at the so called “de-bureaucratisation”. Administrative simplification, however, cannot be conceived as a simple reduction of complexity, which in fact reflects that of the reality administered. The regulation of Special Economic Zones offers an interesting opportunity to reflect on the different types of administrative simplification that can be envisaged. On the one hand, it allows one to isolate some mutations suffered by traditional institutions, such as the conference of services. On the other hand, it allows one to define the tension between the decision-making and the "cognitive" instance, as it is precisely the latter that makes it possible to highlight the need for a recovery of the administrative technical capacity, which could help identify fruitful paths of administrative reform. Simplification alone is not a sufficient solution to solve the crisis in public administration. The National Recovery and Resilience Plan seems to be starting from this consideration, promoting the selection of the best skills and qualifications, through a review of the public competition’s procedures and the promotion of merit in the context of Public Administration.

The Italian Civil Code has been characterised, ever since the original text dated 1865, and also in the legislative act issued in 1942, and still in force today, by its durability and resistance over time: first of all the paper analyses the reasons underlying this temporal permanence. In the same way, and also over the course of time, strong connections have been highlighted between the rules contained in the Civil Code, and their application with regard to public administrations: these connections are also discussed in the paper, both with regard to specific areas of the organisation of public administrations, and with regard to the general principles, deriving from civil law, that are applied today within administrative activity.

The three-year Staff Needs Plan, as now provided for in Article 6 TUPI, is a tool aimed at 'identifying the needs of public administration'. It presupposes a mapping of administrative functions and requires consistency with the Performance Plan, as currently provided for in positive law. The three-year Staff Needs Plan must not, however, constitute an obstacle to good performance of public administration. Such good performance requires annual updating and compliance with the principles set by the Court of auditors. That Court has the duty to review so that its implementation is not arbitrary and does not harm the interests of the community.

The contribution analyses, in the context of the relationship between State and market, the so-called "golden power". Through an in-depth analysis both historical and of the regulatory framework, the author identifies its origins, its procedural, organizational and control modalities, as well as the prerequisites for its compatibility with the European legal system.

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.

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.

In the recent judgment of June 2020 in case C-378/19 (Prezident Slovenskej republiky), the Court is once again called upon to rule on the definition of ‘independencÈ regarding regulatory Authorities. In particular, it has to give an answer to the question on whether it can be considered as independent an Authority which is appointed by the Government and to which procedures are allowed to take part representatives of the ministries. Therefore, the Court has to assess whether the Slovak legislation implementing Directive 2009/72/EC, relating to the internal energy market can be considered legitimate, with particular regard to art. 35 of the same Directive, which precisely governs the designation and independence of the regulatory Authority. The Court concludes that, in accordance with the principle of institutional autonomy, which, inter alia, allows Member States to decide on their internal administrative organisation, the national legislation in question cannot be considered per se illegitimate, provided that all the requirements are met indicated by the Directive in order to ensure the independence of the Authority. In other words, governmental appointment and ministerial participation in the price-fixing procedures do not affect ex se the independence of the regulator. In any case, the criteria in accordance to which this appointment is carried out must be as such as not to compromise the objective of the integration of the specific market, precisely that of guaranteeing the independence of the regulator. This decision, despite being in line with the previous case-law (even if the Court does not give a definite answer left to the national judge) which leaves Member States wide margins of choice in relation to the organisation and powers of the independent Authorities, provided that minimum requirements are met aimed at guaranteeing the achievement of the objectives of the legislation considered, it gives us the opportunity to dwell on the issue of institutional autonomy in the specific sector of the independent Authorities and make some final considerations.

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 Constitutional Court reiterates the obligation for the Government to comply with the limits of the delegated law, declaring the unconstitutionality not only of the rule raised by the referring judge but also of those strictly consequential to that contested. The ruling investigates the nature of the damage to the image of the public administration as damage consequence and not related to the relevance of the fact for the media as constituted by the rule subject to constitutional.

Article 6bis of Law no. 241/1990 governs the conflict of interest in exercising administrative power; however, this legal rule does not provide a definition of “procedural conflict of interest” and it does not define the nature of the procedure requiring the public servant to abstain. The present study analyses the doctrinal and jurisprudential orientations formed with regard to the aforementioned notion and attempts to identify the application area of the institute.