The Invisible Citizen in the Digital State: Administrative Law Meets Digital Constitutionalism

Constitutional law and administrative law are inseparable partners in protecting fundamental rights. Yet, in the digital state, where rights are increasingly mediated by digital technology, the role of administrative law has become invisible. This invisibility is translated at two levels: first, with digitalisation, government has become invisible to citizens due to the gradual disappearance of human assistance. Second, the public sector no longer sees citizens as individuals with rights, perceiving them as data points. This invisibility is problematic because when citizens do not see what administrative law entails (and vice versa), many citizens become excluded from exercising their rights on equal terms. This chapter focuses on the interplay between the constitutional granting of rights and the administrative law procedures that operationalise them. It does so by drawing on digital constitutionalism, a scholarly trend which seeks to understand how the values of contemporary constitutionalism are being reshaped in the digital context, namely by the interaction of public and private interests. This chapter seeks to understand the ‘invisibility problem’ within the digital transformation of the public sector by employing a holistic approach that intertwines digital constitutionalism with administrative law.