The duty to provide reasons: a perennial decline?

Abstract

The paper deals with the decline in the motivation for administrative acts, due to cultural constraints, jurisprudential practices and legal provisions. The paper explains, first of all, what the decline consists of. Subsequently, we indicate the positive law indicators that record and legitimize a loss of relevance of the motivation, especially for the purposes of judicial review, with a series of consequences for the substantive regime of administrative activity itself. The paper analyses on the costs of the decline, which reflects a more general crisis in administrative guarantees. The aim is to respond to the decline by identifying motivation as a tool that reduces information asymmetries between those who administer and those who suffer the effects of administrative decisions, within the framework of an accentuated responsible conception of public action. Finally, a proposal to reform Article 3 of Law 241/1990 is formulated in line with the thesis discussed, without ignoring its risks.