Social sciences, administrative law and good governance. Fighting immunities of power to the battle for good government and good governance through a fruitful dialogue

Abstract

The study deals with the relation between Law (administrative law) and the rest of social sciences. On one hand, the study underlines the existence of a legal tradition strongly influences by formalistic approaches. On the other hand, , simultaneously, there is a lack of conscience of the importance of legal inputs in the daily public management as well as in relevant points of view from the academy in the area of political science and other social sciences. The work emphasizes the necessary epistemological and methodological renewal of the legal jurisprudence which should look at the key of the public activity in a distinct way: the use of discretionary powers. In that sense, the role of law not should be only an instrument of control purely negative but also a tool of orientation of this discretionary exercise looking for the good administration and the good government. In that approach, law and other social sciences should work together, avoiding reciprocal dissolutions. But in any case, the element that distinguishes law is that courts of justice have the last word on the conflicts that can generate the development of public policies.