Public Interest: Between Ideology and Law

Abstract

Public interest is intended to mean a consolidation of the prevailing ends of the legal and political order of a democratic state. This is a vague legal concept that generally carries the risks of confusion and manipulation. The undoubted difficulties involved in its determination often lead to it being credited (or discredited) as an ideological concept. Administrative doctrine holds that vague legal concepts do not widen administrative discretion and do not open up a route to arbitrariness. However, neither the legislator nor the administration nor the judiciary have managed to avoid the risks of indeterminacy. Perhaps the best guarantee for achieving a reasonable validation of this concept is to establish a strong relationship between public interest and democracy. Public interest as distinguished from the metaphysical idea of natural law and the common good, must be above all a democratic value, in that its definition should be in the hands of democratically legitimated power and its implementation must involve the protection and realization of a greater number of private interests. From another perspective, the crisis that always grip the concept requires us to emphasize the need for public interest to be a matter for eachs citizen, that is, the pursuit of general interest involves the ability of every citizen to put a distance between it and their private interests.