The administration in court
The competent judge
When a State administration takes part in judgments before the ordinary Courts and Courts of Appeal, the ordinary rules of jurisdiction for the territory do not apply, but the rules of the State forum (articles 6 to 10 Royal Decree 30 October 1933, n.1611): the judgment, in fact, must be brought before the Court or the Court of Appeal of the place where the office of the State Attorney General is located in whose district the judge who would be competent from time to time is located. according to the ordinary rules, in the case of a defendant State, or in whose district the obligation has arisen or must be performed or the movable or immovable thing that is the subject of the application is found, in the case of a State plaintiff in court (Article 25 of the Italian Civil Code) .
The application of the court of the State arises, historically, from the need to concentrate the trials against the State at the judges of the place where the Royal Tax Offices were based and finds its basis in the need to ensure, with a lower cost, a better performance of the service.
The forum of the State is not always applied, however, when a State administration takes part in judgments before the ordinary Courts and Courts of Appeal: there are cases, in fact, in which they continue to operate, based on the so-called principle of ubiquity, the ordinary criteria.
Notifications
One of the guarantees that assist the defense of the State Administrations (and in some cases of the Regions) is represented by the application of the regime of notifications of the introductory acts of the process.
According to common law, in fact, the deed must be notified at the registered office of the legal person (Article 145 of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure) which will then appoint, if necessary, a defender for the appearance in court. The existence of compulsory legal aid, on the other hand, implies the seniority of the defender and allows the prescription according to which notification must be made directly at the offices of the State Attorney's Office.
Together with the tax forum and the superfluity of a specific ad litem mandate, the notification regime, whose history is coeval with the tax forum, completes the defensive tools and further characterizes the ius postulandi of the State Advocacy in the exercise of its institutional functions defense in court of the State Administrations.
Outside the cases of compulsory legal aid, however, common law applies. In this regard, with specific reference to Anas, cf. Cass., Section III, 3 August 2001, n. 10690, Foro it., Rep. 2001, item State Administration (representation), n. 13. In doctrine, on the subject, cf. P. PAVONE, The state in court, Milan, 2002, 127 ff. Particularities also concerned the discipline of the nullity of invalid notifications and the related consequences.
