CONTESTING AI DECISIONS IN COURT: PUTTING ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE TEST
How do you contest a decision when no one will explain how it was reached? Consider a hypothetical case. Anokyewaa graduates with first-class honours and applies for a government-funded postgraduate scholarship. The state agency administering the scheme receives tens of thousands of applications. She is not selected. Her letter says she “did not meet the required threshold.” It gives no score and no reasons. She later finds that several successful applicants had weaker academic records. That alone does not establish unfairness: academic results may not have been the only criterion. But she cannot find out what else counted or why her application fell short. Anokyewaa files a request under the Right to Information Act, 2019 (Act 989), asking how her application was assessed. The agency replies that the selection was made by an automated artificial intelligence (AI) system. She now knows that AI was involved. She still does not know what it measured, what score she receive...