The Jurisdiction on the Social Rights: A Conflict Between the Courts and Public Power in the Italian Legal System

This Chapter aims at understanding how the Italian Ordinary Courts - due to the control of supranational Courts - have jurisdiction over the exercise of private law realized by public power, specifically in the field of . The protection of such rights via private law (and also jurisdiction) is not excluded just because they are provided for by the public authority, acting either in forms of public or private law (financial aid by administrative order, or by forms of contracts). The reference is the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgment on the Mennitto v Italy (2000) case. According to ECtHR, social services fit perfectly into the arena of "private law and human rights", which is under administrative control in the Italian legal system. Control by the Ordinary Courts realizes that exceeding any possible limitation of the social rights through discretionary activities puts the public power "private law and human rights" up to the possibility of judicial review by the Strasbourg Courts on administrative activities as to whether or not they are acting in forms of public or private law.