Citizens’ Right to Information and the Principle of Good Administration: What’s New in the AI Act?

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act has sparked debates about establishing new or expanded information rights for citizens affected by AI-based decision-making in public administration. These debates particularly focus on cases where AI supports caseworkers in making individual decisions that affect a single person or a clearly defined group of natural or legal persons (both referred to as citizens). While some argue that new or expanded information rights to citizens are reasonable, valuable, and ethically recommendable, others caution that new or expanded rights may inhibit innovation. However, as with any public debate, arguments should be grounded in a clear understanding of existing rights under current regulations. This article examines the right to good administration in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (EU Charter) to provide a foundation for future debates on new or expanded information rights for citizens affected by AI usage in administrative decision-making. In this context, we conduct a legal dogmatic analysis of the right to good administration, enshrined in Article 41(1) of the EU Charter, and its constituent information rights: the right to consultation, the right to access, and the right to an explanation. Moreover, we explore how the transparency provision in Article 13 of the AI Act will interact with these information rights and whether the regulations collectively form a robust legal framework for citizens affected by AI-driven decision-making in public administration. In other words, this article identifies, analyzes, and systematizes existing information rights in the EU Charter, as such rights apply broadly to all areas of public administration unless derogation is to be found in regulation applying only to a specific area of administration, alongside Article 13 of the AI Act. Our approach to selecting and examining legal sources mirrors that of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), as the Court holds the interpretation privilege of the examined provisions (dogmatic method within legal realism).