The administrative justice in Italy at time of Covid-19. Lights and shadows

Giuseppe Di Vita (University of Catania, Department of Economics and Business)

Abstract

This paper investigates, from a law and economics point of view, the impact of COVID-19 on the Administrative Justice System in Italy. We built a new database, never be used in previous analyses, covering the period from January 2019 to June 2021, regarding all the Administrative Courts of the twenty Italian regions. Despite the period is short, the availability of monthly data allows us to perform some quantitative analysis regarding the impact of pandemic on the efficiency of Administrative Justice in Italy. In an hand, the COVID-19 have entailed a reorganization of the Tribunals, such way increasing the duration of disputes. In the other hand, the impossibility to hold the hearings in presence of the court, gave a tremendous boost to the implementation of technological improvement of the administrative justice system in Italy. Thirty months represent a period too short to draw final conclusions, but some preliminary evaluation can be done. In particular, this paper have some implication of economic policy, because stresses the need of a more extensive implementation of digitization of administrative justice system to increase its level of efficiency.

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