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I don't think we can change this for the maintenance branches. The code behaves according to the documentation:
 access(path, mode) -> True if granted, False otherwise
"False otherwise" is really meant that way: otherwise. The specific condition is indeed not communicated. However, applications are entitled to not seeing exceptions come out of this function.
I would be in favor of changing this in the long term, but then raise exceptions in all cases. Alternatively, have it produce falsish values that encapsulate the error code.