La «civilizzazione» della pubblica amministrazione

The aim of this essay is to show that penetration of the logic of private law in public law, started with the application of liability rules to the damage caused to private persons by the public administration has to go on, determining a “civilization” i.e. the application of private law, i.e. civil law as the law of citizens as law of equals, in all situations in which the authoritarian power characterizing every public institution is not strictly necessary to attain the envisaged goal. All this in particular signifies that the traditional approach, consisting in invalidating illegitimate acts of public powers, at the moment paralleled by the new one, is to be substituted by this, consisting in liability for damages deriving from those acts. At the same time the analysis refers to current positions of Corte di Cassazione, Consiglio di Stato and European Court of justice as to the general questions of civil liability of public powers.