In the design of the democratic Rechtsstaat , public law and public trust are strongly interconnected. In this model, government can only be effective if citizens trust government institutions. Citizens will trust their government if they can participate in political decision-making through elected representative bodies and if the way government decisions are made, executed and monitored are bound by clear and explicit rules.

Since both these aspects are governed by public law, the content and quality of public law are thought to be crucial for creating and maintaining public trust, both in relation to the government vis-à-vis its citizens and in relation to different bodies and various levels of government itself. Trust generating attributes might be found in, for example, public law with regard to political decision-making and the role of political parties; legal principles about public regulation; legal procedures in public law; state structures; and public control and supervision arrangements.

Areas

The programme focuses on the relation between public trust and public law in five different areas:

1. political decision-making
2. regulation
3. procedural justice
4. state structures
5. public enforcement and supervision

This is a multidisciplinary research programme, which involves both several (sub) fields of national and international public law and several social sciences. Researchers participating in the programme are active in the following academic disciplines: (Dutch and European) administrative law, constitutional law, public order law, legal philosophy, political science, public administration and sociology of law.