Ethical and discretionary aspects of decisionmaking in the context of digital rationalization

ENWhile the most important point of using algorithms in judicial systems is named fairness, it is necessary to search for measures on how to map out regulatory frameworks for decision-making based on algorithms. This suggests that purely normative legal instruments might lose their power, thus authors in the perspective of future judicial power analyze some legal and ethical implications. As a point of bridging the gap between human and algorithmic decision-making is the identification of emerging issues in legal reasoning. Authors submit decomposition of using logical methods in the light of possible dissonance between artificial and human legal reasoning. The attention is paid not only on rationallogical methods of legal reasoning but, conversely, discretionary and ethical dimensions. Furthermore, authors distinguish the importance of judicial power in legal reasoning, especially because of the so-called “hard cases”. Taking into account the rationalism, introduced by the rapid change of technology in legal discourse, authors seek for a counterweight to the moral justice side. Also, the distinction between a judge and mechanical reasoning indicates a demand for deploying new ethical requirements in this sphere. According to a rapidly growing role of technologies in the judicial work, the forecast is a grave decrease of judicial discretion. The latter aspect indicates introducing high legal ethics skills with frameworks of exercising abilities to reflect technological changes in judicial systems. [From the publication]