Behördliche Internetportale im Lichte des Allgemeinen Verwaltungsrechts: Zur Renaissance des Rechts der öffentlichen Einrichtungen

Abstract

Governmental Internet Portals as a Topic of General Administrative Law: A Renaissance of the Law of Public Bodies

Public administration increasingly provides access to online databases for public user interaction. The provided data is predominantly not related to administrative aspects, but directed at the behaviour of citizens. The governmental internet portals challenge administrative law both as a judicial practice and as a scholarly endeavour. This article proposes doctrinal structures to determine the legitimacy and limits of such new modes of governmental activities.

The article rests on two assumptions. First, from an organizational and institutional perspective the governmental internet portals can be conceived as public bodies with a public service mission. Second, such an understanding allows recourse to the framework of general administrative law, especially the doctrinal structures of public property law. In this new perspective, the law of public bodies gains greater importance for evaluating governmental internet portals.

However, the dynamic of internet communication, particularly the possibilities of interaction and collaboration in social media, can also have opposite effects: doctrinal development in the law of public bodies would seem inevitable. Academic renaissance of traditional topics characteristically is accompanied by enhancement and advancement of this very topic.