Definition
The capacity to fix a particular bad decision: a challenge is heard, the decision is reversed, and the person it harmed is restored. It is what most contestability regimes measure, because it is what the instruments can see.
It matters because case corrigibility without structural corrigibility is locally corrigible and globally rigid: the person is restored, the pattern is not, and everything the institution does about the pattern happens after the fact and at the level of the individual, which is the one level at which the pattern does not appear.
AgencyStructural
Tests that show it is in place
- A challenged decision can be reversed by a named authority by a declared deadline.
- The reversal is recorded and the person is restored to their prior state.
- Case-level reversals are counted separately from changes to the upstream rule.
References
- Exception learning · Theory