The interpretation of administrative acts
In fact, «the interpretation of administrative acts is subject to the same rules dictated by the art. 1362 et seq. of the Civil Code for the interpretation of contracts, among which the one connected to the literal interpretation assumes a pre-eminent character as it is compatible with the administrative provision, the judge having in any case to reconstruct the intent of the Administration, and the power that it intended to exercise, based on the overall content of the act (so-called systematic interpretation), taking into account the relationship between the premises and its device and the fact that, according to the criterion of interpretation of good faith pursuant to art. 1366 cc, the effects of administrative acts must be identified only on the basis of what the recipient can reasonably understand, also due to the constitutional principle of good performance, which requires the PA to operate in a clear and linear manner, such as to provide citizens with certain and safe rules of conduct, especially when negative consequences may arise from them»(2).
The concrete case
The TAR Lombardy, Milan, section. IV, in the sentence. 19 November 2025, n. 3749, addressed a concrete case in which the demolition order did not promptly and precisely identify the works subject to the restoration sanction, generically providing “the removal of illegal works carried out in the absence of landscape and building rights as well as the restoration of the state of the places and of the original and authorized agricultural use within the peremptory deadline of 90 (ninety) days from the date of notification of this act”.
Furthermore, in the specific case, this data could not be obtained through examination of the premises, which did not contain unequivocal indications in this sense, given that the ordinance also indicated legitimate artefacts and mentioned non-permitted activities, which however mainly had environmental relevance.
The lack of a precise description of the works to be restored to pristine condition therefore prevented us from understanding the object of the ordinance and also from carrying it out, as its content was not clear. Furthermore, in the face of a sanctioning act, albeit of a restorative nature, it is all the more necessary to guarantee the precise indication of the abuses, in order to avoid extending the sanction to cases not covered by the legislation, in violation of the principle of mandatory nature (in terms of repression) of administrative offences, which also include construction crimes (3).
Other relevant hypotheses
In a similar case, the TAR Lombardia, Milan, section. IV, in the sentence. 15 October 2024, n. 2700, affirmed the illegitimacy of a demolition order which did not precisely identify the works subject to the restorative sanction, referring generically to the inspection report, which did not describe the artefacts to be removed but only indicated what was found on site by municipal employees, i.e. the demolished buildings and those not yet subject to removal, as well as a building subject to an amnesty.
Again, the same TAR Lombardia, Milan, section. II, in the sentence. 13 October 2020, n. 1890, had deemed illegitimate a demolition order which limited itself to recalling the content of a SCIA presented by the private individual and then withdrawn by the same, through which it was intended to carry out some heavy extraordinary maintenance interventions, in the absence of any official assessment by the municipal technical office, neither to verify the actual presence of abuses nor to identify the works to be sanctioned and their actual typology. Specifically, the judges stated that “it is not possible to proceed with the imposition of a building sanction, making exclusive reference to an application for a conformity assessment presented on behalf of the owner and then withdrawn, without an official assessment, as it is essential to carry out an adequate investigation aimed at ascertaining the factual situation not only for the identification of the works, but also for the subsequent legal qualification of the alleged abuses.”
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Notes
(1) TAR Lombardy, Milan, sec. IV, sentence. 15 October 2024, n. 2700; section II, sentence. 13 October 2020, n. 1890; sent. 21 July 2020, n. 1394; Council of State, sec. III, sentence. 24 September 2025, n. 7487; section VI, sentence. 11 December 2024, n. 9983; section II, sentence. 8 February 2024, n. 1299; section VII, sentence. 18 October 2023, n. 9086; section VI, sentence. 5 July 2023, n. 6555; TAR Calabria, Reggio Calabria, section. I, heard. 19 March 2019, n. 171.
(2) Council of State, sec. IV, sentence. March 25, 2021, n. 2514; section VI, sentence. 30 June 2020, n. 4166; sent. March 24, 2023, n. 3023; sent. 3 March 2023, n. 2253; TAR Lombardy, Milan, section. IV, sentence. 27 October 2025, n. 3433.
(3) On the principle of legality in administrative sanctioning matters and on the corollaries of the typicality and specificity of the sanction, cf. Council of State, sec. VI, sentence. February 27, 2023, n. 1956; sent. 21 May 2019, n. 3278; section V, sent. 12 October 2018, n. 5883; on the subject, see also TAR Lombardia, Milan, section. IV, sentence. 11 November 2024, n. 3093.
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