Principles and methods for increasing efficiency in public law

Public intervention shall be subject to an efficiency test. In law, this test takes the form of three general principles, subsidiarity, proportionality, and sustainability, which are applied for protecting fundamental rights before the Courts but also for reaching better public decisions in general. They are linked to economic instruments for measuring the pros and cons of State action, such as impact assessment and cost/benefit analysis (CBA). In the USA and the EU, these tools raise controversial questions as to whether “hard†or “soft†CBA is suitable for measuring non commensurable goods (human life, the environment) and for projecting the future benefits of public policies. The ultimate goal of regulatory intervention is to ensure the public good of legal certainty. This principle imposes to the State the duty to serve both legality and efficiency by producing the optimal legal norms and by assessing the costs of rule drafting and legal change.