Article 41 – The Right to Good Administration

Abstract

Article 41The Right to Good Administration 1. Every person has the right to have his or her affairs handled impartially, fairly and within a reasonable time by the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the Union. 2. This right includes:(a) the right of every person to be heard, before any individual measure which would affect him or her adversely is taken; (b) the right of every person to have access to his or her file, while respecting the legitimate interests of confidentiality and of professional and business secrecy; (c) the obligation of the administration to give reasons for its decisions. 3. Every person has the right to have the Union make good any damage caused by its institutions or by its servants in the performance of their duties, in accordance with the general principles common to the laws of the Member States. 4. Every person may write to the institutions of the Union in one of the languages of the Treaties andmust have an answer in the same language.Part I -Commentary on the Articles of the EU Charter

Resh(AI)ping Good Administration: Addressing the Mass Effects of Public Sector Digitalisation

“…The umbrella clause in Article 41(1) CFR includes some flexible elements that could accommodate an expansion and broadening of the right to good administration beyond its current contours. It has been authoritatively argued (Craig 2021(Craig , p. 1128 that it is possible "to rely on Article 41(1) for aspects of the right to good administration that do not readily fall within the more specific parts of Article 41(2)" and that an expansive interpretation of Article 41(1) CFR would include, for example, many extensions put forward by the EU Ombudsman (2002). The effectiveness of these rights is underpinned by the right to an effective remedy and to a fair trial in Article 47 CFR.…”