Fundamental rights, liability of public administration and administrative jurisdiction: an introduction

Abstract

The contribution aims to illustrate and explain the theoretical reasons underlying the current state of Italian litigation on fundamental rights before the administrative courts. First, the reasons for the complexity of the topic are introduced. Therefore, an overview of the most significant cases faced by the administrative jurisdiction is offered and the difficulty of identifying a certain criterion of distinction with the hypotheses in which the civil jurisdiction can intervene is highlighted too. Finally, the essay tries to derive the reasons for this difficulty, starting from a constitutional interpretation and noting the structural ambiguity of the way in which the Italian distinction between “diritti soggettivi” and “interessi legittimi” is conceived, on a practical level. The article concludes by hoping for greater awareness of the constitutional interpretative mechanisms and the specificity of the protection that administrative jurisdiction is able to guarantee.