Abstract

This chapter examines how automated adjudication affects the procedural safeguards traditionally afforded to individuals in administrative decision-making. Through a comparative analysis of two hypotheticals—one involving fully automated welfare adjudication and the other a semi-automated licensing procedure—it highlights how algorithmic processes may erode the rights to be heard, to receive adequate reasons, and to obtain meaningful human oversight. The chapter shows that, although jurisdictions increasingly accept the use of AI to enhance administrative efficiency, they also converge on the need to preserve fundamental guarantees of good administration. Particular attention is devoted to transparency obligations, access to algorithmic logic or source code, and the availability of judicial or administrative remedies. Divergences persist, however, especially in balancing transparency with intellectual property protections when private actors develop the relevant algorithms. Overall, the chapter demonstrates that while automated decision-making offers significant benefits, it simultaneously intensifies longstanding tensions between efficiency and individual rights, requiring renewed commitments to procedural fairness and accountability in the digital administrative state.

Table of Contents

1. Object and scope of the analysis

2. Automated adjudication in context: a critical examination of two hypotheticals

3. Ratatouille ingredients: issues, challenges, and approaches

4. Tramp unveiled: issues, challenges, and approaches

5. Participatory requirements and basic procedural rights meet a machine: commonalities and divergencies