On the “obscure” Division of Functions between Competition Commission and Department Board in Competition Call Procedures for University Roles, as confirmed in Most Recent Legislative News

Abstract

The article addresses some anomalies in the appointment procedures for university roles in accordance with Law no. 240/2010. Such procedures seem to have been elaborated with the purpose of establishing a mixed system directed to preserve, on the one hand, the intervention of a competition selection board, and, on the other, the need to respect university autonomy, especially providing for an additional necessary phase to the competition that should culminate with the approval of the proposal for appointment by the pertinent Department Board. Moreover, the whole procedure takes place within a system in which the relevance of local Universities is growing. The inaccuracies of the legislation have already given birth to wide administrative litigation, as well as to initial, although still unsatisfactory, revisions of that same legislation and attempts to find solutions at the regulatory level. They appear to be aimed also at looking for solutions to some paradoxes, addressed in the article, including the (concrete) possibility that the winner of the competition, or one of the successful candidates, may not be appointed, with implications of doubtful constitutionality, on the basis of a mere and unjustified failure to reach the absolute majority requested by law for the approval of the proposal of appointment by the Department Board