Italian law scholars have never paid much attention to public administration ethics, más-11y because of the lack of ethical rules: in the public employment legislation, ontology has always pre-vailed over deontology, and the administrators' duties are loosely described. As a result, the morally correct conduct is frequently difficult to identify, while the only effective remedies for miscon-duct are the criminal punishments. The «Code of behaviour of the employees of public administrations» is an attempt to regulate the individuals' choices by appeal to generally shared moral principies. The idea is not to repress, but to give guidance, which is particu-larly necessary for the «grey zone» of the «dubious cases» such as the conflict of interest ones. The stress is on the distinction be-tween public ethics and private morality and on the educational value of rules.