It held that a declaration of inadmissibility issued before the assignment of the K10 code must be interpreted as an interlocutory decision by the public administration, following which a contradictory procedure must be initiated, and therefore has “a non-decisional nature, as it invites the applicant to cooperate in the administrative process by submitting a new (supplemented) application, allowing the identified obstacle to be overcome.”
According to the Court, the notification by the public administration of the absence of an element necessary for the positive conclusion of the procedure constitutes a sort of “notice” from the online portal, whose sole purpose is to immediately draw the applicant’s attention to any irregularities in the formulation of the application and in the completeness of the attached documentation, thereby allowing him or her to promptly submit a new, error-free application using the same valid documentation, as well as the fee and stamp duty already paid.
In essence, in the view of the Council of State, the invitation by the public administration to complete and regularize the application — as conveyed in the contested communication — clearly resembles the notice provided for under Article 10-bis of Law No. 241/1990.
Upon submission of a new application, supplemented with the elements necessary to demonstrate to the Administration the possession of the requirements previously deemed lacking, the digital automation — according to the aforementioned decision of the Council of State — cannot in every case and automatically produce “the same detrimental effect of declaring the application inadmissible.”
Indeed, “Digitalization processes, and the application of administrative procedure rules to them, given the instrumental nature of the means in relation to the end, cannot result in a weakening of citizens’ procedural safeguards, but rather should lead to a streamlining of procedures that does not penalize or restrict the exercise of participatory rights.”
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