E-Government and Digitalization

This article compares the digitalization process of healthcare in Italy and Germany focusing on two main tools: the electronic health record and the mHealth regulation. Despite structural differences, the two countries present similar levels of digitization and, whereas Germany has recently introduced cutting-edge legislation on digital care, Italy has a more advanced level of EHR implementation. The analysis therefore focuses on the issues that have emerged in the two jurisdictions and the complementarity of the solutions adopted.

This article summarises the approval process of the Artificial Intelligence Act Proposal, particularly concerning high-risk predictive algorithms, to assess the effect of this legislative change.

This contribution summarises the main amendments adopted by the European Parliament during its first reading of the EU’s Proposal for a Regulation on Artificial Intelligence (AI Act). It outlines the impact of this Act, if adopted with such amendments, on automated administrative decision-making (“adm-ADM”), and examines the margin Member States will have to supplement such provisions in their respective national administrative procedure acts. It concludes that the AI Act is a necessary piece of legislation and that, if adopted with some of the Parliament’s amendments, it will adequately regulate the development and use of AI systems by European public authorities, setting a high regulatory standard that can be reinforced by national legislators.

This paper examines the implementation of artificial intelligence in decision-making processes within public administration, with a focus on addressing the challenges of transparency, accountability, and the intelligibility of AI-generated decisions. The paper discusses the importance of imputability in decisions made with deep learning algorithms. It emphasises that by granting public administrations full control over the training dataset, source code, and knowledge base, the imputability of the decision can be ensured. This control enables administrations to validate the relevancy and accuracy of the algorithm's training data, address potential biases, and comply with legal and ethical requirements. The paper then proposes the use of Large Language Models (LLM) as a solution to enhance the transparency and motivation behind AI-assisted decisions. It highlights that LLMs can generate articulate and comprehensible textual outputs that closely resemble human-generated decisions, allowing for a deeper understanding of the decision-making process. Furthermore, the paper emphasises the significance of providing access to the training dataset, source code, and individual administrative precedents to enhance transparency and accountability. It argues that by offering these components, stakeholders can evaluate the validity and reliability of AI-assisted decisions, fostering trust in the decision-making process.

The diffusion of new telematic technologies has generated profound changes in the contractual typologies drawn up by publishers and offered to academic institutions or purchasing centres. These pose significant tax problems due to the need to demarcate between publishing products and the provision of services. Territoriality for VAT purposes makes the matter more complex in relation to "publication services", the subject of new contractual types being adopted, including "compact" contracts of a transformative nature, concerning continuous services of access/use of online databases and scientific journals and the publication of scientific articles on those databases. The novelty and uncertainty of the reference regulatory framework has led publishers and buyer networks to request multiple opinions from the financial administration through the preventive consultation procedure. This essay examines the solutions offered by administrative practice in order to address the tax problems deriving from the new contractual typologies in the field of electronic journals, in particular outlining the applicable regime for VAT purposes.

In recent years, Public Administrations in Spain has undergone significant evolution, particularly due to the emergence of new public governance models, the concept of administrative citizenship (which pertains to the evolving relationship between citizens and the Administration), and the disruptive impact of technology. However, Spain has yet to adapt its public employment system to effectively address this new situation. Moreover, the complexity is further compounded by the challenge of establishing a dual typology of public employees and the increasing addition of employees to which general labor law norms apply. This paper explores the key issues stemming from this situation and emphasizes the urgent need to address them promptly, in order to facilitate a suitable transformation of the Spanish public employment and civil service system.

With one year remaining before the 2024 European elections, it is useful to try to appreciate what legacy will be left by the ninth legislature, which on close inspection appears to be truly exceptional. During the current legislature there has been a change in the European Union which has cast light on its capacity to take strong, courageous and highly innovative decisions. Also its ability to impose itself as a determined legislator. The article examines some important aspects in this respect and points to new avenues of research.

Public administration is immersed in a major technological disruption that raises interesting questions and legal debates. The use of artificial intelligence is undoubtedly one of them. However, this phenomenon must be analysed in the context of the general transformation that the public sector is undergoing, the so-called “public governance”, with all that this implies, in short, a new relationship between citizens and public authorities, which marks the scenario in which the current Administration must act. Bearing in mind that the very essence of administrative law hinges on a constant duality, this paper analyses the use of artificial intelligence in the public sector, seeking the eternal balance between efficiency and guarantees.

This is the introductory speech to the Round Table which outlines some of the aspects that have characterized the progress made by administrative justice with a view to tackling a new challenge: that of continuing to ensure a balanced relationship between private and public interests even in the presence of, on the one hand, extensive and significant transformations and, on the other, judicial instruments that are evolving towards hybrid forms, different from the original models.

This article addresses the legal order of the digital sphere, focusing on the constitutional dimension. In particular, the new freedoms that have come into being with the advent of technology, especially digital platforms. There are doubts about the effectiveness of regulatory intervention, such as that attempted by the EU whose purpose seems to focus on sanctions for violations rather than on promoting freedoms. The article emphasizes the positives rather than the negatives of a digital legal order, while recognizing the problems with the digital market where the large companies exercise a dominant and anti-competitive position. The article also addresses the issue of democracy on the Internet and the challenge of misinformation.