The Telematic Procedures in the European Union. Introducing a Draft Directive

• Autore: Giovanni Duni
• Carica: Professor of Administrative Law at the University of Cagliari (Italy)
• Pagine: 113-129

The Telematic Procedures in the European Union.

Introducing a Draft Directive

GIOVANN I DUNI∗

SUMM ARY:1. Introduction /Introduzione – 2. Study of a Potential Directive to

Institute a Framework for the TelematicAdministrative Procedure and the Public Ad-

ministrations Interface with the Citizen through Electronic Means in the Application

of EU Law – 3. The Working Group

1. INT RODU CTI ON /INTROD UZI ON E

Thirty-three European scholars have participated in a series of confer-

ences on the subject of telematic procedure in European Public Adminis-

trations. The working group, who later collected and coordinated all the

suggestions, found that the most useful conclusion of this work was to write

a f‌inal text in the form of a possible EU directive. There are 25 “whereas”:

a deliberately large number, as they constitute a veritable report supporting

the entire project.

To the specialist in administrative law, it is blatantly obvious that the ac-

tivity of the public administrations is based on the procedure, def‌ined as a set

of rules governing the initiation, investigation, transparency, participation,

cooperation among off‌ices and public bodies.

To the scholar of administrative law it is also obvious that the main legal

acts of public administrations are the result of a set of complex activities,

conducted through the cooperation of various governmental bodies and sev-

eral off‌ices. Only few minor acts are performed by a single off‌ice and a single

public off‌icial.

However, such awareness did not result in adequate, complete and exe-

cutable regulation, when the Community and national legislators resolved

to regulate the use of ICT in public administrations exclusively by way of

dematerialization of documents.

Since the early days, researchon the tele-administration (1978) had shown

that the purpose of dematerialization was to enable networked management

of digitalized procedures.

∗The Author is Professor of AdministrativeLaw at the University of Cagliari (Italy).

114 Informatica e diritto /Studi e ricerche

Conversely, up to the present moment, the attention of legislators (with

some exceptions) has focused on the electronic document, ignoring the es-

sential phase of its creation. That is, the administrative telematic procedure.

As this knowledge is now acquired, or at least it is gaining grounds, it

seems highly appropriate that the EU play its role, just as it did for elec-

tronic signatures in 1999, of coordinating the various solutions before they

are adopted by individual Member States, before creating preset situations

that are diff‌icult to remove, with the disastrous effect of making it impos-

sible for the administrations of States to interoperate digitally and telemati-

cally among themselves (horizontal interoperability) and with the EU insti-

tutions (vertical interoperability). In this situation, the operational diff‌icul-

ties for the European citizen would be self-evident.

The legal basis for intervention, as well as the limits of the Directive, are

clearly stated in the whereas of the text, and we refer to them.

We would like to remind the reader of the generalization of the telematic

“single point of contact”, already enhanced by the Directive 2006/123/EC

on services; the electronic off‌ice and the electronic folder (dossier). Many

crucial problems are dealt with, such as the technical readability of docu-

ments immediately and over time.

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Trentatre studiosi europeihanno par tecipato a convegni sul tema del pro-

cedimento telematico nelle pubbliche amministrazioni europee e lavorato

successivamente coordinando tutti i suggerimenti raccolti. Il gruppo di la-

voro ha ritenuto utile concludere i lavori redigendo un testo nella forma di

una possibile direttiva comunitaria. I «considerando» sono 25: volutamente

numerosi perché rappresentano complessivamente anche una relazione di

supporto all’intero progetto.

Per gli specialisti del diritto amministrativo è estremamente ovvio che

l’attività delle pubbliche amministrazioni è basata sul procedimento, inteso

come un insieme di regole che disciplinano l’avvio, l’istruttoria, la trasparen-

za, la partecipazione, la cooperazione tra uff‌ici ed amministrazioni.

Per gli studiosi di diritto amministrativo è altrettanto ovvio che i princi-

pali atti giuridici della pubblica amministrazione sono il risultato f‌inale di

attività complesse, svolte attraverso la cooperazione di più uff‌ici e di più am-

ministrazioni pubbliche. Sono pochi e poco rilevanti gli atti che si compiono

ad opera di un solo uff‌icio e di un solo pubblico funzionario.