Administrative-legal regulation of activity of the legislature in terms of information technology: international experience

The progress of information and communications technology has brought about profound changes in the way we live and work, ushering in a new society today familiarly referred to as the “information society.” An information society is a society in which information is a dominant medium on all essential activities of its members and is a major source of wealth creation.

Information Technology (IT) has captured unprecedented importance at national as well as global level as one of the vital factors for growing and sustainable economy, good governance, and administration of justice [1, c. 58].

The use of information technology (IT) in public administration has been developed in two dimensions: office automation and information systems. The first dimension (i.e. office automation) seeks to raise efficiency and productivity of office business; the second one aims at organizing and utilizing information to support administration and management, as well as policy development and decisionmaking, so as to improve effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity of an organization as a whole.

One of the far reaching consequences of the digital revolution was the emergence of `e-Government'. e-Government projects, undertaken starting from the 1990s in the developed parts of the world, seek to tap information technology for the innovation of government administration and public services [2].

What strikes one in reading the literature on the information society is that so many writers operate with undeveloped definitions of their subject. It seems so obvious to them that we live in an information society that they blithely presume it is not necessary to clarify precisely what they mean by the concept. They write copiously about particular features of the information society, but are curiously vague about their operational criteria.

Eager to make sense of changes in information, they rush to interpret these in terms of different forms of economic production, new forms of social interaction, and innovative processes of production or whatever. As they do so, however, they often fail to establish in what ways and why information is becoming more central today, so critical indeed that it is ushering in a new type of society. Just what is it about information that makes so many scholars think that it is at the core of the modern age?

Frank Webster thinks it is possible to distinguish five definitions of an information society, each of which presents criteria for identifying the new. These are: technological, economic, occupational, spatial, cultural. These need not be mutually exclusive, though theorists emphasize one or other factors in presenting their particular scenarios.

However, what these definitions share is the conviction that quantitative changes in information are bringing into being a qualitatively new sort of social system, the information society. In this way each definition reasons in much the same way: there is more information nowadays, therefore we have an information society.

As we shall see, there are serious difficulties with this ex post facto reasoning that argues a cause from a conclusion. There is a sixth definition of an information society which is distinctive in so far as its main claim is not that there is more information today (there obviously is), but rather that the character of information is such as to have transformed how we live.

The suggestion here is that theoretical knowledge/information is at the core of how we conduct ourselves these days. This definition, one that is singularly qualitative in kind, is not favoured by most information society proponents, though I find it the most persuasive argument for the appropriateness of the information society label. Let us look more closely at these definitions in turn [3].

Scientists from Saudi Arabia highlighted some tangible benefits of E-government: l.Increases transparency: E-Government allows increased transparency of government activities and makes the government more accountable to citizens. 2. Reduces scope for corruption: Reduced scope for corruption is another important impact of e-Government.

Combating corruption is a top priority and e-government can provide an effective tool for that purpose. 3. Helps increase investor confidence: Improvements in the transparency of government also raises investor confidence, which in turn contributes to increased foreign direct investment in the long run.

More efficient governance: E-Government facilitates in making the government's internal processes more efficient, thus saving time and resources in the long run.

More efficient services to citizens: E-Government enables the government to respond more efficiently and quickly to citizen demands and requests. 6. Helps boost the private sector: E-government helps provide boost to the private sector, particularly SMEs, by reducing the time and expense required for businesses to interact with the government. Furthermore, through simplification of government processes and services such as online procurement, the government can reduce barrier to entry for new businesses and also increase competition. 7. Allows for decentralization of governance: E-Government makes decentralization of government easier since data stored in digital format can be updated and accessed from virtually any office within a networked environment. 8. Allows greater scope for integration:

Digital storage of data and software applications allow greater scope of integration of activities of different government offices as data can be shared easily and efficiently. 9. Allows learning from the past: Since e-Government allows data to be stored and from past projects can be easily used for new retrieved easily, experiences and statistics similar projects. 10. Stimulates the local ICT industry: e-Government projects also provide valuable experience to the local ICT industry for becoming competitive in an international market. 11. Makes ICT relevant to the masses: E-government makes ICT relevant to the masses as its benefits can gradually be shared by all from every corner of the country [4].

The most obvious benefit of e-government is improving the service to people. Each of the 38 programs studied for the report cited improved service delivery and social welfare of citizens as key objectives. Survey respondents rated the improvement in service even higher than agencies, with 80 per cent saying e-government had been of moderate or significant social benefit to them.

E-government also saves customers money in the form of faster, easier and more convenient service, better quality and reduced turnaround times, and in some cases a reduction in the direct cost for the service. At least 45 per cent of those studied said they had saved money by using e-government.

Ten per cent of people, and 23 per cent of businesses and intermediaries said they had saved more than $25 per transaction. Estimates indicate the 169 identified programs, across 38 agencies, saved at least $1.1 billion in 2002. There are also many social benefits valued by citizens including increased community skill and knowledge, and new business and work opportunities [5].

Governmental informatization (GI) is an important composition of national economic informatization and social informatization. GI can boost the improvement of management, decision-making and public service of governments by applying modern information technology to exploit and manage governmental information source.

As cities in developing countries and system-changing countries, the acceleration of GI brings new opportunities to the economic and social development, and urges a change from a traditional government in the industrial period to an advanced government in information period.

E - Government can provide better ways to manage information compared to traditional means. Hypertext enables you to provide access to complex sets of information in relatively easy and user-friendly ways and, combined with databases, it can also provide users with ways to interact directly with the data, i.e. consult it, update it and/or send it to other destinations: in other words, a website can enable users to initiate and/or complete service transactions without recourse to human intervention.

The absence of a gate-keeping role on the part of humans not only saves time and money, but it is also likely to help reduce and prevent phenomena such as corruption and bribery, a problem experienced by many governments: by potentially cutting out “middlemen”, e-government represent a relatively transparent way of administering services and information, in comparison to traditional means.

Having a website also provides governmental bodies with an opportunity to systematically collect information about their clients and users: this includes running surveys, asking users to share their personal data in order to register for specific services (and therefore easily create and maintain a database of users of these services), and generally monitoring the behaviour of visitors to the site (e.g. through statistical analysis, which can be used to establish what information users are most interested in) [6].

Nanjing is the capital of economically developed Jiangsu Province as well as a center city in Yangtze River valley. Nanjing has owned some foundation on city informatization, and accelerated the process of GI in recent years. With the positive effect shown by the electronic government which initiated from the government online project, Nanjing is making great efforts to become a modern informational center city. Facts indicate that GI is a key sector in city informatization, and plays an important role in advancing the opening, development and perfection of city's functions [7].

Information and communications technology (ICT) is often used as an extended synonym for information technology (IT). It is a more extensive term (i.e. more broad in scope) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications(telephone lines and wireless signals), computers as well as necessary enterprise software, middleware, storage, and audio-visual systems, which enable users to access, store, transmit, and manipulate information. ICT can be very useful for interacting with the legislative, obtaining information on legislative operations - norms, rights, monitoring of legislative proposals, actions pressurizing the legislature and contacts with representatives.

For example, the consultation of a `proposals databank' according to type, number, author, issue, date, and other parameters, would facilitate a follow-up of the projects, of amendments made, of related subjects, and it would allow to register through e-mail to receive data on the progress of proposals of interest.

ICT can be used for rendering services to the public, such as obtaining general certificates, personal documents - identity, commercial information, transfers, contracts, deaths, notary information, or facilitating the payment of taxes and dues. In the area of public safety,

ICT can be very useful both in infrastructure solutions (equipment and personnel) and in building a network (including a database) for combating drug trafficking and arms smuggling, as well as for the centralized control of criminals and border patrol operations.

Most importantly, ICT integration generates a democratization factor. ICT themselves should be a means for creating mechanisms and policies conducive to learning, a new technology facilitating the sharing of solutions among different levels of government and population [8].

Thus, mass introduction of new information technologies in the legislative process through the development and phased implementation of information and communication systems of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and other authorities; conducting complex administrative and information studies for validity and consistency of laws and other decisions can significantly improve the efficiency of legislative activities.

In the article analyzed the international experience of administrative-legal regulation of activity of the legislature in terms of information technology. The author highlighted benefits of E-government and analyzed the point of view of scientists on the issue.

Keywords: information, management, administrative law, government informatization.

information society public office legislative