E-Government: The Role of Legally Significant Messages on the Internet

This article is concerned with the features and role of legally significant messages on the Internet within the functioning of e-government. A special role in creating e-government is played by legal documents and legally relevant information available online. Only legally significant information leads to the emergence and development of legal relations governed by rules of law. However, it is difficult to determine legally relevant data in a large information flow. The main objective of this article is to examine the role of electronic communication in operating e-government. While writing this article, the authors used methods of collecting and studying certain facts; generalization methods; methods of scientific abstraction; methods of cognizing regularities. The authors of the article have concluded that legally relevant information available on the Internet is information that has certain forms of external manifestation, entails legal consequences and somehow contributes to governing citizens' legal relations. The authors have suggested their definition of e-government, which is the concept of public administration inherent in the information society. This concept is based on the capabilities of information and telecommunication technologies and the values of an open civil society. E-government consists of three main modules: services for citizens; services for institutions and organizations; services for state bodies. When rendering services, the authorities exchange legally relevant e-information with citizens. The use of new Internet technologies by government bodies can decrease costs for maintaining and financing activities of the state apparatus, increase savings of taxpayers and improve the openness and transparency of government bodies.