Abstract

The institutions of contemporary democracies are ever increasingly more frequently called upon to measure themselves with the need to make the autonomies of the subjects that compose them compatible and coexistent. In bringing this about they avail themselves of two elements: law and trust. The latter is mainly nourished on information. The subject of the present work is a particular kind of information: statistical, which is to say the scientific activity with which complex social facts are measured by reducing them to uniform and intelligible quantitative data. The importance of this activity prevents legal systems from neglecting it, and there is a felt need for this activity to be organised in such a way as to guarantee information that is continuous, complete and reliable. It becomes evident that it is necessary to organise statistical activity in a permanent and objective way so that it accomplishes its intended function.