The “Idea” of Administrative Law

The “idea of” administrative law is a product of nineteenth-century liberal constitutionalism. We are referring to continental legal systems where administrative law can be defined as a set of rules and principles that ensure, within the framework of the rule of law, that administrative activity (exercised by administrative bodies or by private individuals to whom that exercise has been “delegated”) is subject to the law and the law. However, the idea of administrative law is not only the result of various historical and multidisciplinary approaches, but its autonomisation as a branch of law is also more recent. What is more, the constitutionalism of the second half of the twentieth century and the “generalisation” of fundamental rights ended up giving it an ultimate meaning and, in its own way, also a reason to jeopardise its essence.