Abstract

In the course of the first months of 2005, the Italian system has undergone two significant legislative reforms in the area of the regulation of administrative action: Law n. 15 of 2005, which has incisively modified the general law on administrative procedure, and Legislative Decree n. 82 of 2005, containing the Code of Digital Administration. Involved are reforms that touch on various aspects, but which apparently can form a system in the prospect of administrative transparency. If we understand transparency as the knowability of information that makes democratic control over the administration possible, Law n. 15, which has changed the institution of the right to access, is a significant step backwards, since at the very moment when transparency is included among the general principles of administrative action, the right to access is in fact transformed in an evident way into an instrument essentially for the protection of the individual, for the defence of his (or her) own interests. Even if it is necessary to continue to valorise the right of access as an instrument of transparency, it becomes equally necessary to search for other instruments outside the law on procedure, so as not to have to attribute a negative overall judgement to the reforms in terms of transparency. If we examine Legislative Decree 82/205, we find a set of provisions that seem to prefigure a new dimension of transparency, which is realised 'on-line' and follows from the general statement concerning the 'availability' of public information and full accessibility of information services, and substantiates itself with the regulation of the minimum contents, in terms of the quality and quantity of the information, which must characterise the sites of the public administrations.