THE LIMITS OF THE AUTONOMY OF PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES

As is well known, the Constitutional Court has understood that university autonomy is a fundamental right at the service of universities, whether public or private, which constitutes the "institutional dimension of academic freedom that guarantees and completes its individual dimension, constituted by academic freedom". The subsequent jurisprudence of the High Court has shaped a growing freedom of the Universities which, on occasions, has been in conflict with the freedoms (of research, teaching) that it is supposed to protect. This research critically examines this jurisprudence, questions the irrelevance of public or private nature in determining the ownership and content of the fundamental right and examines some current dysfunctions caused by university autonomy (for example, in access to university teaching bodies). In view of these possible problems, it examines the limits of the autonomy of public universities, which may derive from the existence of fundamental rights, from the very distribution of power within the universities, and from the rule of law (linkage to higher legal norms, to the controls established therein and, in general, to the courts of justice).