Del contrato estatal a los sistemas de compras públicas

During the last decades, public law has entered into an important process of change. Without a doubt, globalization, the internationalization of State relations and the humanization of international law have played important roles in this; However, as the years go by, the factors that drive it to continue transforming and renewing increase. As an example, it is enough to see how understanding administrative law gains greater relevance, not only as a branch of public law, but as an element that integrates the latter while dynamically interacting with constitutional law and international law. This is how, with the passage of time, international law and constitutional law have become useful tools to interpret administrative law, to rethink its scope, its structure and its functioning. These new ways of understanding administrative law have radiated each and every one of the topics that the latter includes; in particular with respect to one of its vertebrae, state contracting. In this sense, it is necessary to remember that the state contract, despite its pristine origin in private law, was conceived as a tool to achieve the essential purposes of the State and, therefore, to materialize the constitutional assumptions of the social State of law. This is how the state contract has been decisive in advancing the satisfaction of social needs, consolidating itself around principles of public law, as well as the principle of autonomy of the will of private law.

Now, although the state contract has always been a particularly useful tool for the exercise of the activities of the Administration and the achievement of the essential purposes of the State, evolution (social, economic, institutional and technological) has forced us to begin to rethink whether state contracting is efficient enough to achieve its mission. This is how it is no longer enough to understand the state contract as a simple instrument to fulfill the functions of the State; on the contrary, it is now necessary to think of public procurement as a strategic mechanism through which positive and substantial transformations are also achieved within of society and the State, which allows the impact of public spending on the national economy and promotes the growth of countries.