Danish digital design and the gradual erosion of technology neutral administrative law

Gøtze, Michael (author)

Purpose: Holding pole position in the digital race, Denmark is an EU member state that not only has inherent incentives for self-scrutiny to avoid digital hybris but also serves as an inspiration for other countries aiming to move into the fast lane of digital designs. In the wake of strong digitization within Danish public administration, a fundamental legal question arises: does digitization change the core content of general administrative law? Against this backdrop, the purpose of this article is to examine the existing Danish doctrine of technology neutral law, which asserts that digitization does not interfere with substantive law and does not negatively affect citizens’ rights. Approach: The article establishes a discussion based on relevant sources of law such as the Danish political agreement on digitally ready legislation, examples of sectoral legislation (parts of Danish tax law), and the practices and recommendations of the influential Danish Parliamentary Ombudsman. Findings: The article’s conceptual finding is that the doctrine of technology neutral law is not fully justified. In 2024, Danish legislation is increasingly designed to be digitally compatible from the very beginning, which is a significant shift. This new legislative concept has been named digitally ready legislation (digital by design), denoting legislation that is ready and “pre-cooked” in its phrasing and concepts to be transformed into subsequent digital solutions. Another finding of the article is that the proactive digital focus of the new regulation (acts and general administrative regulation) may come at a cost, potentially reducing the flexibility and adaptive quality of regulatory templates that are crucial to the rule of law. Practical Implications: The article aims at identifying the practical – and possibly negative – implications inherent in digitally ready legislation. To this end, it explores various rule-of-law and legal certainty scenarios. A key challenge is to strike a fair balance between regulation with an open-ended and discretionary design and close-ended rule-based frameworks relying on objective criteria. While pushing the agenda of digitally ready legislation brings clear benefits for administrative efficiency and promotes equal treatment across sectors, and although Denmark consistently ranks in the top end of the digital class in Europe, the ongoing digital reform also presents certain issues. Arguably, the reform may represent a drawback towards a more simplified legal geometry that does not fully accommodate the diversity of citizens and enterprises subject to Danish law. As the notion of technology neutral administrative law is gradually eroding, this article calls for a more reality-based discussion about the level of citizens’ rights vis-à-vis public authorities. Administrative law itself may need to be re-designed and made more rule-of-law ready. Value: The article offers a reflective, rule-of-law-based commentary on the ongoing strong political push for digitally ready Danish legislation.

• Language: English
• Keywords: digitally ready legislation, legal certainty, ombudsman, rule of law, technology neutral law
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FU - Faculty of Administration
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2024
• Number of pages: Str. 129-145, 257-258
• Numbering: Vol. 22, iss. 2
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-165645
• UDC: 34:004(489)
• ISSN on article: 2591-2240
• DOI: 10.17573/cepar.2024.2.06
• COBISS.SI-ID: 218368771
• Publication date in RUL: 11.12.2024

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Central European public administration review
• Shortened title: CEPAR
• Publisher: Fakulteta za upravo
• ISSN: 2591-2240
• COBISS.SI-ID: 293849600

Licences

• License: CC BY-SA 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
• Description: This Creative Commons license is very similar to the regular Attribution license, but requires the release of all derivative works under this same license.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Danska digitalna zasnova in postopna erozija tehnološko nevtralnega upravnega prava

Abstract

Namen: Danska je v digitalizacijski tekmi vodilna med državami EU. Poleg uveljavljenih mehanizmov samokontrole, s katerimi zavira nepremišljene digitalizacijske ukrepe, služi tudi kot navdih drugim državam, ki si prizadevajo za pospešeno uvedbo digitalnih rešitev. Intenzivna digitalizacija danske javne uprave pa poraja tudi pomembno pravno vprašanje: ali digitalizacija spreminja temeljno vsebino splošnega upravnega prava? Namen tega prispevka je zato proučiti obstoječo dansko doktrino tehnološko nevtralnega prava, po kateri digitalizacija ne posega v materialno pravo in nima negativnega vpliva na pravice državljanov. Pristop: Razprava o omenjenih vprašanjih temelji na pravnih virih, kot so danski politični sporazum o digitalno usmerjeni zakonodaji, primeri sektorske zakonodaje (davčna zakonodaja) ter prakse in priporočila parlamentarnega varuha človekovih pravic. Ugotovitve: Konceptualna ugotovitev prispevka je, da doktrina tehnološko nevtralnega prava ni povsem upravičena. Leta 2024 je danska zakonodaja vse bolj zasnovana tako, da je že od samega začetka digitalno združljiva, kar je pomemben premik. Ta novi zakonodajni koncept lahko poimenujemo digitalno usmerjena zakonodaja, kar označuje zakonodajo, zasnovano tako, da je v svojih formulacijah in konceptih že vnaprej pripravljena na preoblikovanje v digitalne rešitve. Poleg tega prispevek ugotavlja, da ima lahko proaktivna digitalna usmerjenost nove ureditve (zakonov in splošne upravne uredbe) svojo ceno, saj lahko zmanjša prožnost in prilagodljivost, ki sta ključni za pravno državo. Praktične posledice: Namen prispevka je opredeliti praktične – in morda negativne – posledice, značilne za digitalno usmerjeno zakonodajo. V ta namen proučuje različne scenarije pravne države in pravne varnosti. Ključni izziv je doseči pravično ravnovesje med predpisi z odprto in diskrecijsko zasnovo ter tistimi z zaprto zasnovo, ki temeljijo na pravilih in se opirajo na objektivna merila. Čeprav digitalno usmerjena zakonodaja očitno povečuje upravno učinkovitost in spodbuja enako obravnavo v vseh sektorjih in čeprav se Danska dosledno uvršča v sam vrh digitalnega napredka v Evropi, trenutna digitalna reforma odpira tudi številna vprašanja. Reforma bi lahko pomenila korak nazaj v smeri bolj poenostavljene pravne strukture, ki pa v celoti ne upošteva raznolik med državljani in podjetji, za katere velja danska zakonodaja. Zaradi postopne erozije tehnološko nevtralnega upravnega prava prispevek poziva h konkretni razpravi o ravni pravic državljanov v razmerju do javnih organov. Morda bo treba na novo zasnovati tudi samo upravno pravo in ga narediti bolj usmerjenega v vladavino prava. Vrednost: Prispevek ponuja na pravni državi temelječ komentar o trenutnih političnih pritiskih za digitalno usmerjeno dansko zakonodajo.

• Keywords: digitalno usmerjena zakonodaja, pravna varnost, varuh človekovih pravic, pravna država, tehnološko nevtralno pravo