First lines:
The Italian administrative system emerged in the years following the political unification of the country (1861), through the extension of the law of the Kingdom of Sardinia – which had been the main actor of Italian unification – over the other Italian territories. Sardinia’s administrative system was deeply influenced by the French-Napoleonic model of droit administratif, under which administrative law constituted an autonomous and special branch of the law, separated from private law, and endowed public administration with a privileged status over citizens: e.g., disputes between citizens and administrative authorities were mostly settled within the administration itself or by special judges, while the jurisdiction of ordinary courts was extremely limited. (…)
