E-Government and Digitalization

Spain's legislation on automated administrative action is among the most advanced in the world. Enacted in 2007, it has remained the same in the current Administrative Procedure Act of 2015. Currently, more than one third of the Spanish public sector uses these systems. Some problems of compliance with general administrative law remain, such as the right to correct applications, the right to present arguments in the face of a draft before a rejection decision is issued, or the motivation of automated decisions or the transparency of programming. But despite the fact that thousands of automated decisions are taken every day, judicial litigation in this area has so far been merely anecdotal. This paper describes the requirements established by Spanish law for the implementation of automated decision-making systems used by Public Administration: their express prior approval, the auditing of the system, the electronic signature of the decisions, etc.; and the critical aspects that still remain.

Digitalization of the Swedish administration has been the center of attention for the Government and legislator for decades, with the explicit goal of being the «best in the world» at using the possibilities of digitalization. The Swedish public authorities were early adapters and have utilized automated decision-making procedures since the 1970’s. The effects on two areas central to Swedish constitutional and administrative law are addressed here: general administrative law, with a focus on administrative decision-making, and transparency rules and access to documents. The regulatory responses in the two areas differ. While concerns regarding the negative effects of digitalization on access to documents prompted the Swedish legislator to include digital recordings among documents encompassed by the right to access already in the 1970s, general administrative law has been adapted to a very limited extent. The Government has over the years commissioned several governmental enquiries on technical, societal, and legal challenges of digitalization of the administration, but the main conclusions in regard to the suitability of automated decision-making have been left to the administration and the courts. Two reasons can be identified. First, it has been a longstanding aim that administrative procedural rules are to be technology-neutral, in order not to become obsolete through future developments. Second, administrative authorities hold a strong and partially independent position in the Swedish constitutional setting, combined with a tradition of pragmatism. Authorities can thus be trusted to perform their decision-making in accordance with the law, whether the procedures are carried out manually, digitally, or by automated means. Swedish courts have thus far refrained from intervening. Still, it is clear that the Swedish administrative law landscape in automated decision-making contains several central lacunas, which ought to be filled in order to safeguard the principle of good administration and the rule of law.

In spite of the image of a developed e-governance, advanced automated decision-making (ADM) systems have not been widely used in Estonian public administration and there is still no general legal framework for them. The draft bill to amend the Administrative Procedure Act, which was presented to Parliament in 2022, takes a rather cautious approach to the issue too, significantly limiting the automation of discretionary decisions and in particular the use of self-learning algorithms. Automated administrative decisions would not be discouraged by the application of procedural principles inherent to the rule of law, such as hearing and reasoning. However, for the automation of discretionary decisions in appropriate cases, a solution has been proposed whereby typical cases would be solved in a fully automated way by means of predefined algorithms based on internal administrative guidelines. This solution is not an universal magic bullet for every situation, but may allow for a certain degree of innovation, provided appropriate procedural and organisational safeguards are respected. Fundamental preconditions for that are the categorical separation of the guidance and algorithm, as well as the publication of the guide. An optimal model of public accountability has to encourage authorities to take appropriate precautions when implementing algorithms.

This contribution analyses the German legal framework concerning automated decision-making systems. Public administration in Germany uses automated decision-making systems primarily to adopt partially or fully automated administrative acts. Accordingly, this paper focuses on automated administrative acts, however, it also discusses the first comprehensive regulation of artificial intelligence enacted by a German “Bundesland”. The paper approaches the topic from three different perspectives: The German legislative framework, case-law and soft-law concerning automated decision-making systems.

In 2025, the obligation for Austrian public officials to maintain confidentiality about all facts of which they have obtained knowledge exclusively from their official activity, enshrined in Article 20 (3) of the Federal Constitutional Law (B-VG) and thus of constitutional status, will celebrate its centenary. Since 1987, flanked by an obligation to impart information pursuant to Article 20 (4) B-VG, it guarantees the protection of information acquired by the public administration when communicating with citizens. With a view to a transparent administration, several attempts have been made since the beginning of the millennium to replace official secrecy with freedom of information in order to achieve a “transparent state”. However, despite the high degree of digitalization of the Austrian public administration, the path to this goal remains still challenging.

Automated decision-making has been discussed in Austrian administrative law for more than 40 years. The focus has always been on the administrative act (in the sense of a formal individual decision) and the pertaining procedure. In this area, there are established principles, although new technologies raise new questions. Beyond the administrative act, we are still very much in the dark.

This article aims at analysing the decision-automation-systems currently used by public administrations in Italy. After an analysis of the legal framework, the different systems are classified and illustrated: in particular, the case of the so-called “good school” algorithm is discussed. The conclusions dwell on the reason for the scarce use of these tools in the Italian landscape, also due to the slow and uneven digitisation of the public sector.

Jurisdictions within the EU and countries around the world are beginning to regulate the use of public Automated Decision Making (ADM). The legal framework thereof differs considerably, and its development is at an early stage. This contribution sets out a possible comparative research framework, with other words elements to compare the different solutions developed by the legal systems in the face of challenges of ADM.

The present study aims to retrace the digitalization process of the public procurement starting from the previsions of the legislative decree n. 50/2016 to Public Procurement digitalization decree n. 148/2021, embraced with over four years delay compared with the previsions. For this purpose, we face the extremely wide jurisprudential production in matter of telematic tendering procedures. Namely, the decree is inserted in a context in which the jurisprudence has extensively addressed the issues related to the digitalization of the tendering procedures, attempting to make this heavy jurisprudential stratification, not devoid of inconsistencies and relevant developments.

The role of innovative procurement as a sustainability tool. The paper analyses the relationship between sustainable development and public procurement system from a juridical perspective. After having examined the application of the “Sustainable Public Procurement” strategy in so-called “traditional” procurement, the study explores the sustainability benefits that can be derived from the use of so-called “innovative” procurement by contracting administrations.