A Judge Over Your Mechanical Shoulder: The role of judicial review in shaping algorithmic bureaucracies

There is an increasingly rich emergent discourse at the intersection of administrative law and automated decision-making. Outside the context of automated decision-making, the relationship between judicial review and the intricate bureaucratic workings of administrative institutions in the United Kingdom has been the subject of empirical ‘impact studies’. To date, however, a central question that draws together these two fields has been neglected: what impact can judicial review have on the operation of automated administration? This thesis argues that the evolution of public administration in the UK towards ‘algorithmic bureaucracy’ should prompt us to revisit the question of what impact judicial review has, and can have, on bureaucracy. The change in the administrative environment raises questions as to whether previously identified limitations and factors recognised in judicial review impact studies conducted in non-automated or ‘street-level’ bureaucratic environments continue to apply in the same way in increasingly ‘system-level’ or ‘algorithmic’ bureaucracies. By situating the discussion in the context of social security in the UK, and its increasingly automated administrative environment, this thesis argues that the dynamics that are at play when judicial review influences the machines of government are shifting, due to the evolving nature of administration.