Superamento e riaffermazione del confine tra diritto pubblico e diritto privato. Il caso dei danni punitivi

The boundary between public law and private law is essential for Western legal systems, especially for the civil law systems. It is a border that is periodically overcome; but deeprooted dogmatic needs inevitably lead to its restatement. This dialectic is clearly visible in the case of the transposition of the punitive damages in the Italian legal system. In this case, private law dogmatics and public law dogmatics overlap, originating not minor conceptual and principle questions.