Public interest and the question of Locus Standi

Abstract

An era of rapid industrial progress, scientific development, globalization, i.e. of phenomena whose consequences transcend national boundaries, increasingly raise questions about the eligibility to participate in proceedings, not only of those that are directly, but also of those that are indirectly affected; in many cases it happens that an entire community suffers because of misdeeds caused by public authorities. This paper is based on the assumption that a distinction should be made in the approach to private and public law because they protect different goods. If parties in the process may only be the ones that have an individual, personal, and concrete interest, who then may represent groups or individuals that for various reasons cannot do it by themselves? How can we determine the substance of the public interest, how do we preserve it? The paper will attempt to answer these and similar questions by highlighting the very nature of the public interest, the comparative legal arrangements, and the dividing line between the procedural and substantive content of individual cases.