E-Government and Digitalization

The Italian judicial system may be about to make a historic transition: from the mere digitalization of its documents to a judicial activity shaped by the possibilities that digital technology offers, including the use of artificial intelligence techniques in the performance of the judicial function. This contribution offers a summary of the research carried out by the Authors, as members of the research group of the IUSS Pavia, within the NEXT GEN UPP project, launched in 2021 by the Italian Ministry of Justice with the aim of enhancing the digitalization of judicial activities, improving organizational processes and promoting the application of Legal Analytics (LA) tools to legal texts. The activity described in the essay concerns the design of “next-generation templates” functional for the drafting of acts by judges and lawyers: templates capable of maximizing the efficiency of judicial activities and creating an IT environment suitable for the use of the most advanced artificial intelligence technologies.

The paper investigates the Italian legal framework regarding cybersecurity public procurement. First, the rules introduced by the (Italian) 2023 Public Procurement Code are explored. Secondly, the residual legal framework is examined: both the general one applicable to all public administration (including within the [Italian] National Cybersecurity Perimeter), and the special one intended for tendering procedures launched by the (Italian) National Cybersecurity Agency. The necessary role of public actors in promoting and disseminating cybersecurity culture is highlighted.

In EU composite procedures, Open Data can serve many public interests in a new way, leading to faster and more accurate decision-making enabling truly ‘effective’ administrative action. The governance of interoperable public data across EU and member States, including Open Data, is one of the ongoing challenges in a digital world where administrations as platforms compete with each other, while Artificial Intelligence and the so-called space economy open up new frontiers for public law.

One of the main innovations of the Italian Code of Public Contracts (adopted with Legislative Decree n. 36 of 2023) concerns the rules on “digitalization” in Book I of the Code (art. 19-36). This paper sets out the main innovations introduced by these provisions (with particular regard to the digital life cycle of a contract and the possibility of using automation systems) and highlights how they form a new paradigm, which is relevant not only in the field of public procurement, but also for administrative action in a broader sense.

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.