Oriol Mir Puigpelat, full professor of Administrative Law and member of the Evolution of Institutions Observatory (OBSEI) at the UPF Department of Law, is the principal investigator of the research project titled “Administrative AI for a Democratic and Social State Governed by the Rule of Law (IAA-ESDD)”.

Begun in June 2020 with a duration of three years, the project received a grant of 36,000 euros under the last call (2019) of the Spanish National Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation (R&D&I) 2017-2020 promoted by the Spanish ministries of Science and Innovation and of Universities.

The project will make concrete proposals for a possible reform of the Spanish Legal System applicable to the Public Administration and the Common Administrative Procedure.

The main objectives of the research are, firstly, to study the acquisition, creation and use of algorithms by the public authorities for the drafting of administrative rules and acts; and secondly, to provide a theoretical framework and specific proposals for legislative reform to ensure compliance with the general principles derived from the constitutional clause of the social and democratic state governed by the rule of law, currently threatened by the use of algorithms.

“The ultimate goal of the project is simply to develop a legal framework that ensures public confidence in the use of AI by the public authorities and make use of its great potential for improving their activities and the services they render”, Oriol Mir explains.

Areas the project is to study in depth

IAA-ESDD will include various analyses, on both a national and an international scale: a field study of the use of algorithms by representative Spanish authorities (Barcelona City Council, the Administration of the Generalitat (Government) of Catalonia, and the General State Administration); a detailed work of Comparative Law, Law of the EU and of the Council (focusing on France, Italy, Germany, the United States and on Article 22 of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Other tasks will include a study of the dogmatic impact that the use of algorithms has on basic principles and certain fundamental notions of Spanish administrative law, as well as a study of the emergence of a common European administrative law governing AI.

On the basis of this broad research task, Oriol Mir asserts that the project will make concrete proposals for a possible reform of the Spanish Legal System applicable to the Public Administration and the Common Administrative Procedure.