The historical evolution of the principle of legality and the extension of its meaning in the current of the administrative law

Abstract

Since the emergence of the Rule of Law up to the development of the Democratic State Ruled by Law, the principle of legality was understood as having different meanings and has suffered changes over the historical progress. The current work configures explicative research of qualitative approach, that uses bibliographic methodology and deductive method, whereby the aim is to analyse the historical progress of construction of the principle of legality and what is its meaning length in the present context of the Democratic State Ruled by Law. To this end, it’s necessary to inquire what meanings the aforesaid principle took in the previous contexts of the Liberal State and Social State and, at last, take note of how different scholars understand it in the current context, thereby studying the evolution process of the principle. The paper concludes that it is impossible to disagree with Di Pietro when she claims to unexist, in truth, the so-called legality crysis sometimes aroused. Instead, what currently happens is an expansion on the meaning of legality that binds the Administration to a wider range of norms in comparison to previous times.