Machine-Readable Law: Risks and Prospects of Development under the Digital Transformation of Legal Systems

Objective: to critically analyze the prospects, risks and threats associated with the introduction of machine-readable law technology, taking into account different jurisdictions and scientific approaches.

Methods: the research methodology is based on the methods of legal dogmatics and comparative jurisprudence, which identify similarities and differences in approaches to the formalization of legal norms in Russian and foreign legal systems. Theoretical and legal analysis provides a conceptual understanding of the nature of machine-readable law as a new paradigm of legal regulation. Along with this, the research relies on the tools of related disciplines – computer science, formal logic and philosophy of law, which determines the pronounced interdisciplinary character of the work.

Results: the study revealed a fundamental contradiction between the desire for legal certainty through formalization and the need to preserve the fundamental principles of the rule of law. It showed that the mechanical application of formalized norms creates the risk of decisions that are correct in form but unfair in substance, and that a legal norm can to take into account the context, values, and individual circumstances of a case, going beyond logical and syntactic tools. A clear conceptual distinction was drawn between the machine-readable law technology and the artificial intelligence systems; their confusion in scientific discourse may lead to errors in assessment of the nature of emerging risks.

Scientific novelty: for the first time, a systematic critical analysis of machinereadable law technology is proposed as an independent direction of digital transformation of legal systems, in contrast to related artificial intelligence technologies. The study reveals the philosophical and legal foundations of the limits of formalization, based on the classical concepts of the rule of law, and thereby fills the existing gap in the theoretical understanding of the legal consequences of the automation of rule application. Of particular scientific value is the development of criteria for acceptable and unacceptable areas of application of machine-readable law, taking into account the nature of regulated legal relations.

Practical significance: it consists in developing specific recommendations for the legislator aimed at ensuring the safe implementation of machinereadable law technology while respecting the principles of the rule of law and the human rights protection. The following principles were formulated: the preservation of human control over decision-making; the transparency of formalization algorithms; and the mandatory possibility of intervention by an authorized body. They can be used to draft regulatory legal acts and strategies for the digital transformation of legal systems both in Russia and in other jurisdictions.