Given the scope of automation in all areas of public life and the rapid development of technology, automation of legal regulation turns to be an increasingly important issue. Therefore, automation of legal regulation is not a mere substitution of text with a machine code, but a much more complicated process which is able to have a certain impact on human rights. Since these processes are universal, their analysis in terms of an impact on human rights and the rule of law is important and necessary.

The purpose of the article is to characterize the legal nature of automation of legal regulation and to give a definition of “automated legal regulation” as a concept, and also to mark out different types of automated legal regulation, and to analyze their strong and weak points in terms of an impact on human rights and the rule of law.

The author explores the legal nature of automation of legal regulation and gives the definition of “automated legal regulation” as a concept. Based on this definition, the types of automated legal regulation are singled out according to the criterion of the technologies used. The differences between the “classical” legal regulation and the types of automated legal regulation are identified with the use of such criteria: the form in which the rules are described, application of the classical legal rule structure: “if, then, otherwise”, the method of obtaining a conclusion, the possibility of explaining a decision made, and applicability of an approach to each of the possible cases (universality). Besides, the author makes an analysis of the strong and weak points of automated legal regulation in terms of their impact on human rights and the rule of law in the context of the following aspects: 1) ambiguity of wording and freedom of discretion vs. inability to explain the decision made; 2) dynamic and static interpretation; 3) focus on values and principles vs. focus on prescribed rules and patterns; 4) ensuring access to justice for the least protected groups of the population and reduction of budget expenditure.

The concept of “automated legal regulation” is defined as the use of software and hardware systems for information purposes or for the purpose of certain legal consequences. It is established that automation may have different forms depending on the technology type, in particular, such types as: automated legal regulation based on rules (rule-based legal regulation) and automated legal regulation based on data (data-based legal regulation). The author has found that automation of legal regulation may entail certain negative implications, such as: inability to explain the conclusion generated by the system; failure to take into account variable external circumstances, i.e. inability to use a dynamic approach for interpretation; a possibility that certain value orientations which are reflected in the principles of law may not be incorporated into the automated system; potential discrimination of the least protected population groups, given that it is difficult to appeal against a conclusion generated by the automated system.

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Thesis abstracts

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