This contribution situates the rule of law in the context of automated decision-making by using leading rule of law theories to distill some key underlying values of the rule of law which carry particular significance for automated decision-making; dignity, autonomy, and democracy. While disagreement may exist surrounding specific components of the rule of law, general agreement seems to exist surrounding these core values underpinning the concept. By adopting these underlying values of the rule of law, issues with automation, such as the foreseeability of law, access to justice, or non-discrimination, can also be conceptualized as tensions between achieving automation and maintaining respect for human dignity, autonomy of the individual, and a connection to democratic processes. These tensions are finally explained and illustrated through the analogy of normative refraction occurring as automated decision-making requires legal intent to be mediated not only by the language of the law, but through additional refractive layers of code and data. While existing rule of law principles are adapted for managing the refraction added by the language of law, new approaches may be needed to manage the challenges emerging from the additional layers of code and data.