The Concept of Public Services and its Evolution In the Light of Public Function Doctrine

Abstract

Since the beginning of its theory, the public services faced with conceptual ambiguity and its substantive diagnostic criteria, at least in practice, has not been clear. The privatization of public services and undermining the criterion of "government intervention" and "public interest purpose" added to the existing ambiguity. In these circumstances, the public function doctrine, aimed at protecting the fundamental rights of citizens and their legitimate expectations and consolidation of state responsibility and prescription of regulatory in the market of public services was outlined and welcomed. According to this doctrine, apart from public services that are offered directly by the government, services that were previously provided by the government, but are now provided by the private sector, are also consideredaspublic services. This paper usingdescriptive and analyticalmethod, at first, analyzesverbalandsubstantiveconceptof public service, then reviews thecontentof public function doctrine and evolution of concept of public service and finally studiespurposes and effects ofadoption of public function doctrine.

Keywords

• public services
• public interest
• government
• privatization
• public function doctrine