On 26 June 2025, Melanie Fink delivered a presentation titled 'Good Administration in the Age of AI: Explanation Rights and Human Oversight under EU Law' at the European Ombudsman.
The European Ombudsman is an independent EU institution that investigates complaints about maladministration by EU institutions, bodies, offices and agencies. In March 2024, the Ombudsman launched a strategic initiative examining the European Commission's use of artificial intelligence in decision-making, which focuses on concerns related to accuracy, potential bias, explainability, and human oversight.
Melanie's presentation explored two central debates in AI governance: the right to an explanation and the right to human involvement in automated decision-making processes. She examined how various EU legal frameworks-including the Charter of Fundamental Rights, GDPR, AI Act, and Digital Services Act-establish these rights with different scopes and requirements. Rather than viewing these as competing frameworks, she identified the complementary strengths of different legal approaches. Constitutional principles under Article 41 of the Charter offer principled foundations rooted in fundamental values like legitimacy and human dignity, while also being resilient against legislative changes. Secondary law provisions in instruments like the GDPR, AI Act, and Digital Services Act provide specific, detailed requirements tailored to digital environments and can be flexibly amended to address emerging technological challenges.
The research highlighted how constitutional principles under Article 41 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights can work in synergy with sector-specific digital rights legislation. Melanie argued that Article 41 rights can fill gaps in the limited material scope of secondary law rights, while secondary law rights extend constitutional standards to private actors. This creates comprehensive coverage where constitutional standards reach all digital actors while ensuring regulatory gaps are filled, producing explanations that are both normatively grounded and technically precise.
Melanie is currently working on this topic in a forthcoming article co-authored with her colleague Simona Demkova, which will further develop these themes around administrative justice in the automated state.
