Alcune considerazioni sulla 'stratificazione' delle previsioni di sospensione dei termini procedimentali,

This paper examines the suspension of administrative procedural deadlines introduced by Article 103 of Decree-Law No. 18 of 17 March 2020 as part of Italy's response to the COVID-19 emergency. The provision suspends, from 23 February to 15 April 2020, all procedural deadlines — whether mandatory or discretionary, preparatory, intra-procedural, final or executive — to protect public administrations from delays and the formation of significant silence during the reorganisation of work due to the emergency. The analysis highlights several critical issues: the ambiguous identification of the addressees of the rule (administration and/or private parties), the application of the suspension to complex procedures, SCIA and intra-procedural phases, and the problematic notion of "executive deadlines". The paper also addresses the stratification of measures adopted by individual administrations and authorities (such as the Ministry of Infrastructure, Consob, ANAC and GSE), which, by introducing different deadlines and applicative rules, risk compromising the clarity and intelligibility of the regulatory framework. The author concludes that emergency measures should guarantee an even higher degree of legal certainty than ordinary interventions, in order to allow the continuation of activities and a resilient response of the system.