Principle of fair trial

The contribution addresses the issue of access to justice, in the perspective of the sustainable development goal 16 of the United Nations. After a brief analysis of the territorial organization of Italian administrative justice, the author focuses on the innovations of the electronic administrative trial to assess to what extent it has facilitated access to justice. The contribution therefore evaluates what limits still exist in the electronic administrative trial in the perspective of reducing distances and, on the basis of these considerations, makes some proposals to mitigate the problem of excessive length of the trials.

By decision no. 2539 of 21 April 2020, the Council of State clarified that Article 84, paragraph 5, of Legislative Decree no. 18/2020 shall be understood as meaning that each of the parties has the right to request a postponement of the hearing to a date subsequent to the end of the emergency phase in order to discuss the dispute orally, when the Court deems that the requested postponement does not compromise the right of the other party to a reasonable duration of the trial and where the dispute is not so simple that it does not require any discussion, since it is possible, in the juridical deed procedure, with the necessary caution, to give priority to procedural economy requirements.