El valor publico de la litigacion privada. Una mirada critica hacia la privatizacion de la justicia civil

Abstract

Aim of the article is to analyse - from a critical standpoint - the theoretical implications caused by the loss of centrality of public civil adjudication in favour of private and informal alternative means of dispute resolution (so-called “privatisation of civil justice”). By highlighting how looking at controversies and their modes of resolution as essentially private phenomena entails a genuine ideological revolution, this article will re-state and argue for the public value of adjudication as an essential and crucial component of the Rule of Law. Specifically, by reflecting upon some recent critical views advanced in the common law legal literature on the privatisation of dispute resolution, it will stress the deep connections between public adjudication and democracy, the social evolution of legal systems, and the values of legal certainty and equality of treatment.