Alcune considerazioni sul danno all'immagine della Pubblica Amministrazione

The profound change in the administrative structure has given central importance to damage to the image of the Public Administration in the context of administrative liability. The regulations in force, which are the result of an increasingly creative interpretation of a regulatory framework that was already insufficient in terms of logic and content, raise numerous questions in terms of both legitimacy and efficiency. In fact, as things stand, the main legal issues relating to damage to the image of the Public Administration are controversial in relation to both the legal nature – patrimonial, non-patrimonial or ‘punitive’ – and the identification of the range of figures attributable to such forms of liability. On the other hand, from the point of view of its concrete application, the prerequisites for accounting action laid down by law often prove to be unobserved or interpreted as ‘empty boxes’. The present work, in addition to reviewing the complex evolution of damage to the image of the Public Administration, intends to analyse the key points of the regulatory framework in force with particular reference – also in view of the recent intervention of the Constitutional Court in 2020 – to the evident sanctioning pressure of the institution in question.