Public Interest – Essential Concept of Administrative Law

One of the greatest challenges of the public administration is undoubtedly to adopt adequate measures for the population in order to carry out the work of enforcing laws and providing public services in such a way as to ensure the necessary balance between the public interest and the private interest. In this respect, public authorities, when issuing administrative acts, may infringe legitimate rights or interests. Given that the issue of upholding fundamental rights remains an increasingly important concern for both citizens and public entities, it demands considerable attention, particularly from legal experts. From this point of view, the scope of this paper is to provide knowledge of the general legal framework regarding the regulation in Romanian law of the right of a person aggrieved by a public authority. In order to achieve the proposed scope, the paper is organized into three parts. Part I presents a brief introduction to the general theme of the topic. Part II investigates the practical importance of the distinction between public and private interest in administrative law. Part III focuses on analysis of the public interest motivation in the European Ombudsman's case law.