Barbara L. Boschetti

The article tries to deepen the relationship between the nomina of citizen and of public services user. The nature of public services implies, in fact, a special connection of these two juridical figures that makes necessary to investigate their real significance and their probable overlapping. The analisys of the evolution in doctrine and organization of public services has shown how the social interests of users had always been understood until the last two decades of the XXth Century only in a public and super-individual dimension. The change of perspective can nowadays be searched trying to link the interests of public services users to foundamental rights recognized to citizens. Where this connection can’t effectively be fixed, public services must be guarantee in the name of the principle of equality. Even in this case, the users’ interests remain individual interests. On the other side, the connection of public services with rights and needs of citizens leads to define the user as a man observed in the satisfaction of his rights and needs. Therefore, the evaluation of the individual dimension of the users’ interests calls for a revival of contract as the proper legal instrument to assure it.