The Legal Regime of the Right to Administrate Public Property

• Author: Vasilica Negrut
• Position: Professor, PhD, Dean of Faculty of Law, 'Danubius' University of Galati
• Pages: 25-31

Legal Sciences in the New Millennium

25

The Legal Regime of the Right

to Administrate Public Property

Vasilica Negru

1

Abstract: The traditional institutions for administrative law, public property and the public domain have been

the subject of numerous specialized papers from the interwar period. After 1990, the two institutions were

discussed in light of the new legislative rules. Within this article we propo se to analyze, based on the

distinction between the notions of public property and public domain, the legal regime of the right to

administrate as sets of public property. Is this a real right appropriate for public property or just a simple

competence of administration and management of public domain assets? Analyzing and comparing the

opinions, the arguments expressed by specialists and the current legislation in this area, we conclude that th e

administrative right is a real right suitable for public property.

Keywords: public domain; public property; private property; the right to administration

1. Introduction

The New Romanian Civil Code, which entered into force in 2011, has led to changes in the sphere of

public property the traditional notion for administrative law.

As shown in the specialized literature (Blan, 2007, p. 64), the right to property has occurred at a

certain stage of development of the society, when “the economic relationship of property has received

its features in legal form, the appropriation of material assets ha s become a right of ownership, of

approa ching, established and maintained by the coercive state power.”

The right to property, a fundamental right guaranteed to citizens, “represents that real right that

grants to the holder the attributes of possession, use and disposal, attributes that only it can be

exercised in its plenitude, in its own power and interest”. (Pop & Harosa, 2006, pp. 78 and the next)

The right to property has two forms, the right to public property and the right to private property, as

stipulated in the Constitution of Romania [article 136 par. (1)].

The existence of multiple forms of ownership is established by the constitutions of other European

countries such as Italy (article 42)2 and Spain (article 33)3.

Between traditional institutions of administrative law, which led to controversy in the specialized

literature is that of public domain (Vedinaş, 2009, p. 143). The Constitution of Romania establishes

1 Professor, PhD, Dean of Faculty of Law, “Danubius” University of Galati, Address: 3 Galati Boulevard, 800654 Galati,

Romania, Tel.: +40.372.361.102, Fax: +40.372.361.290, Corresponding author: vasilicanegrut@univ-danubius.ro.

2 “The property is public or private. The economic assets belong to state, institutions or legal entities.” (The Constitution of

the Italian Republic, 1998)

3 “It recognized the right to private property and inheritance.” And according to article 132 paragraph (1) “The law regulates

the legal regime of assets belonging to public domain and villages, based on principles of inalienability, imprescriptibilit y

and imperceptibility, as their decommissioning.” (The Spanish Constitution, 1998).