Government information systems and automated decision‑making systems are becoming a significant factor that has a significant impact on legal implementation in public administration. Using the functionality of such systems, the powers of public authorities, including the provision of state and municipal services, are increasingly being exercised on an alternative basis. The increasing influence of technical systems on the rights and legitimate interests of citizens and organizations in their interaction with public authorities, along with the actual determination by such systems of the procedure for the exercise of rights and obligations by participants in public legal relations, have predetermined the intensification of the doctrinal search for: the place of program code in the system of social and legal regulation; mechanisms for ensuring legality in the activities of public authorities and other subjects in creation and operation of government information systems, automated decision‑making systems. The research uses general and special methods, including: the dialectical method of scientific cognition; system‑structural method; formal‑legal method; comparative‑legal method; methods of analysis, synthesis, comparison and generalization. The study uses the results of an expert survey conducted as part of the scientific and practical seminar “New Subjects in Information Law” (Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation, Moscow, February 28, 2025). The article critically evaluates the emerging scientific doctrine about the program code of state information systems as a normative legal act, and suggests alternative approaches to identifying the legal nature of the program code. The authors conclude that the main emphasis in ensuring compliance of the software code of automated decision‑making systems in public administration should be placed on preliminary and ongoing control. Based on the systematization of assessment systems available in foreign legal literature and practice, the authors formulated recommendations for developers and operators of automated decision‑making systems in public administration.
Pavel Kabytov (Thu,) studied this question.