Abstract

The author tackles the theme of the protection of third parties vis-à-vis the 'd.i.a.' declaration of the beginning of activity (or the 's.c.i.a.' report of certified beginning of activity), which for over twenty years has been keeping jurisprudence and doctrine busy. The debate is made even more heated by the extension of the Declaration of the Beginning of Activity model, considered ever increasingly more by the national legislator as a privileged instrument for the reduction of obliga tions to be fulfilled and of administrative costs. With respect to the theme of third-party protection, not even some recent legislative measures, albeit oriented toward providing a precise solution, have succeeded in steering towards shared conclusions. Overall, two basic perspectives seem to emerge. On the one hand, the theme is considered of paradigmatic importance, as a test bed for measuring the completeness of the instruments offered by administrative proceedings: it is affirmed that the introduction of the Declaration of the Beginning of Activity cannot and must not entail a reduction of the space for jurisdictional protection of the third party. The plenary conference of the Council of State in particular took this stance in a controversial decision of 2011. On the other hand, the conviction often emerges that traditional trial equilibriums represent a point of no return and are therefore inviolable. On the basis of this premise a need seems ripe to adapt to such equilibriums the substantive arrangements of the Declaration of the Beginning of Activity, with important repercussions on the relationship between citizen and administration. The setup and substantive regulation of the Declaration of the Beginning of Activity are thus shaped in terms of conceptions or solutions that, however, are of a trial nature. These orientations stimulate some reflections on the institution, on its substantive features and on the trial implications. At the same time, the developments of the debate in progress acquire a more general importance, which cannot be circumscribed to the plane of trial protection techniques and that touches profoundly on administrative law.