Fair Decisions Research Articles

NAVIGATING THE LABYRINTH OF STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISES DISPUTES IN INDONESIA: A QUEST FOR EFFECTIVE RESOLUTION MECHANISMS

This paper critically assesses the adequacy of mediation as an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) method for resolving disputes between State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in Indonesia. It also explores the potential of other ADR methods for more effectively resolving such disputes specifically tailored for SOEs disputes. The paper commences by providing an overview of the mediation concept as an ADR mechanism, exploring its advantages and disadvantages. It then delves into the characteristics of typical SOEs disputes and the audit concerns associated with them. Subsequently, the paper examines international and Indonesian mediation practices, scrutinising their effectiveness and applicability in the context of SOE disputes. It also identifies the potential obstacles to using mediation to resolve SOE disputes, considering the inherent concerns of SOEs in making decisions. Based on these findings, the paper recommends the adoption of adjudication as an alternative ADR mechanism for SOEs disputes, advocating for the establishment of an Adjudication Tribunal tasked with rendering fair, impartial, and efficient decisions. Finally, the paper proposes a regulatory adjustment by identifying the potential risks associated with adjudication and providing mitigation strategies.

Autistic adults show enhanced generosity to socially distant others.

Autistic people show differences in their social behaviour. But how autism affects decisions to share resources, an important part of cooperation, was previously unclear. In our study, participants made decisions about how to share money with different people, including people they felt close to, such as a friend, and people they felt less close to, such as a stranger. We found that compared to a group of non-autistic participants, autistic adults shared more money overall and this was driven by greater generosity to strangers. The results suggest that autistic adults were more generous because they made fair decisions (an equal split of the money) more consistently regardless of how close they felt to the person they were sharing with. By showing that autistic adults display greater generosity, our results could help to change public perceptions of autism and potentially improve opportunities for autistic people.

Cultivating the Acceptance of Assistance Dogs in Aged Care through Deliberative Democracy.

Assistance dogs provide significant benefits to older adult owners. However, despite protective legislation, aged care facilities continue to not allow owners to retain their dogs on relocation. The purpose of the current study was to explore whether older adults should be allowed to retain their dog on relocation to an aged care facility, and what factors should impact this decision. Further, if allowed to retain their dog, what would be the best practice to allow for this? A deliberative democracy methodology was used, with a range of key stakeholders recruited. Focus groups were held, with follow-up questionnaires to establish deliberation for all questions. Results indicated that with sufficient objective measurement, fair decisions can be made to ensure the welfare and well-being of the owner and dog. Key policy and procedure changes would also be necessary to ensure ongoing support, such as training, care plans, and emergency directives. By ensuring sufficient policies and procedures are in place, training and support could lead to an ideal outcome where facilities could be at the forefront of a better future for aged care.

Mitigating inequity: ethically prioritizing patients for CAR T-cell therapy

AbstractManufacturing capacity and institutional infrastructure to deliver chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies (CAR-T) are pressured to keep pace with the growing number of approved products and expanding eligible patient population for this potentially life-saving therapy. Consequently, many cell therapy programs must make difficult decisions about which patient should get the next available treatment slot. This situation requires an ethical framework to ensure fair and equitable decision-making. In this perspective, we discuss the application of Accountability for Reasonableness (A4R), a priority-setting framework grounded in procedural justice, to the problem of limited CAR-T slots at our institution. We formed a multidisciplinary working group spanning several hematological malignancies. Through multiple rounds of partner engagement, we used A4R guiding principles to identify 4 main criteria to prioritize patients for CAR-T: medical benefit, safety/risk of complications, psychosocial factors, and medical urgency. Associated measures/tools and an implementation process were developed. We discuss further how ethical principles of fairness and equity demand a consistent approach within health systems that does not disadvantage medically underserved or underrepresented populations and supports overcoming barriers to care. In our commitment to transparency and collaboration, we make our tools available to others, ideally to be used to engage in their own A4R process, adapting the tools to their unique environments. Our hope is that our preliminary work will support the advancement of further study in this area globally, aiming for justice in resource allocation for all potential CAR-T candidates, wherever they may seek care.

Determinan Pengambilan Keputusan Berkeadilan Konsultan Pajak

Objectives. this studi aims to determine and analysis the effect of moral responsibility, selfish behavior, ethical action and sefl-control on the fair decision of tax consultant.Design/method/approach. This research is a quantitative research that looks for relationships between variables. The research sample is a tax consultant in South Jakarta for reasons of geografhical affordability after the Covid 19 pandemic. At the time of research the number of tax consultant in South Jakarta could not be known, so the Lemeshow formula was used to determine the sample size. With this formula, it is known that the sampel is 67.24 which is rounded up to 67 people using the non probalility sampling method. Data obtained by distributing questionnaires. The analytical method used is multiple linear analysis with WarPLS version 7.0.Results/findings. Moral responsibility has a positif and significant effect on fair decision making. Selfish behavior has a significant negative effect, ethical behavior has a significant positive effect and self control has a non significant positif effect fair decision making.Theoretical contribution. The result of this research are expected to be one of the references in developing lesson plans as well as references in preparing a consultant’s code of ethics, specially in the field of taxation.Practical contribution. The result of this study become an alternative input for tax consultant in making decisions, especially in deciding the tax obligations of taxpayers (clients).Limitations. This research was conducted on tax consultant in South Jakarta, so the research results anly apply to the sample studied and do not represent tax consultant in general.

Reformulation of the Authority of Judicial Commission: Safeguarding the Future of Indonesian Judicial Power

Jurisdiction of Indonesian judiciary still leaves various polemics, one of which relates to decisions that are antinomian between the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court. This research aims to describe efforts to resolve these issues through reformulation within the constitution, regarding the supervisory authority of the Judicial Commission in creating harmonization of judicial decisions in the future. This type of research is normative research. The results indicate that reformulation or redefinition of the authority of the Judicial Commission in the constitution is a gateway to optimizing the role of the Judicial Commission as a product of reform in supervising judges in issuing correct, fair, and legal certainty decisions. Regulation through the constitution is an attributive authority in which the formulation of constitutional norms in the chapter on judicial power, particularly Article of the Judicial Commission, should preferably include phrases of "safeguarding" and "upholding" the code of ethics and conduct of judges, as preventive and repressive measures to prevent antinomian decisions between two judicial state institutions from recurring.

SAF: Stakeholders' Agreement on Fairness in the Practice of Machine Learning Development.

This paper clarifies why bias cannot be completely mitigated in Machine Learning (ML) and proposes an end-to-end methodology to translate the ethical principle of justice and fairness into the practice of ML development as an ongoing agreement with stakeholders. The pro-ethical iterative process presented in the paper aims to challenge asymmetric power dynamics in the fairness decision making within ML design and support ML development teams to identify, mitigate and monitor bias at each step of ML systems development. The process also provides guidance on how to explain the always imperfect trade-offs in terms of bias to users.

Judicial and public control over the discretionary powers of the national regulatory commission in the fields of energy and public utilities

The article analyzes the judicial and public control over the discretionary powers of the National Commission for State Regulation of Energy and Utilities. The Authority of the Regulator in the field of setting tariffs in the energy sector is a broad discretion, therefore, an important legal issue is the regulation and implementation of control activities for their implementation.
 It has been established that the legislation does not provide for the responsibility of the National Commission for State Regulation of Energy and Utilities before consumers - natural persons for making illegal decisions, which can significantly complicate the process of receiving compensation by the consumer for losses incurred as a result of making such decisions by the National Commission for State Regulation of Energy and Utilities in court. This indicates a very high degree of risk and opportunities for abuse in decision-making by the regulator in the field of setting prices (tariffs), including for housing and communal services, which are related to his discretionary powers.
 The article analyzes court cases over the past 3 years by courts of administrative jurisdiction in courts of first instance, in which of the National Commission for State Regulation of Energy and Utilities was a participant (in 2019 – 117 decisions were made, in 2020 – 167 decisions, in 2021 – 179 decisions). However, the results of the analysis led to the conclusion of a very low level of legal activity of consumers - natural persons. Such a low activity of appeals by natural persons against the decisions of the National Commission for State Regulation of Energy and Utilities in the field of setting tariffs may indicate either a low level of knowledge in the field of current mechanisms for setting tariffs in the field of energy and possible public control over their adoption, the need to incur significant costs of time and money to appeal the decisions of the regulator, and mistrust in court in terms of making fair decisions in a dispute with a subject of authority.
 It was concluded that today the household consumer of services in the field of energy is practically not protected from the arbitrariness of the Regulator in the context of the presence of an effective mechanism for checking the use of discretionary powers by the regulator in the field of tariff insertion. In general, only a combination of judicial and public control can give a positive result in the direction of implementing the principle of good governance in the activities of all administrative bodies, including the National Commission, which carries out state regulation in the fields of energy and communal services.

An ethical framework adapted for infection prevention and control.

The ethical implications of infection prevention and control (IPAC) are recognized, yet a framework to guide the application of ethical principles is lacking. We adapted an ethical framework to provide a systematic approach for fair and transparent IPAC decision making. We conducted a literature search for existing ethical frameworks in IPAC. Working with practicing healthcare ethicists, an existing ethical framework was adapted for use in IPAC. Indications were developed for application to practice, with integration of ethical principles and process conditions specifically relevant to IPAC. Practical refinements were made to the framework based on end-user feedback and application to 2 real-world situations. In total, 7 articles were identified that discussed ethical principles within IPAC, but none proposed a systematic framework to guide ethical decision making. The adapted framework, named the Ethical Infection Prevention and Control (EIPAC) framework, takes the user through 4 intuitive and actionable steps, centering key ethical principles that facilitate reasoned and just decision making. In applying the EIPAC framework to practice, weighing the predefined ethical principles in different scenarios was a challenge. Although no hierarchy of principles can apply to all contexts in IPAC, our experience highlighted that the equitable distribution of benefits and burdens, and the proportional impacts of options under review, are particularly important considerations for IPAC. The EIPAC framework can serve as an actionable ethical principles-based decision-making tool for use by IPAC professionals encountering complex situations in any healthcare context.

Personnel Records Management In Tanzania

Background of the study: Inadequate and improper storage facilities, absence of electronic records management system, inadequate space for records storage, human resource officer’s lack of records management skills and lack of internal training were the main challenges affecting the management of personnel records in Liwale district council. Purpose: The study aimed at investigating the personnel records and the challenges faced in management of these records in Liwale district council (LDC) in Tanzania. Method: The study used a qualitative approach in which 30 respondents were purposely selected. Questionnaires and in-depth interviews were used to collect data. Quantitative data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science version 20 while qualitative data were subjected to content analysis. Findings: Findings revealed that appointment letters and letters of confirmation were the most cited (16.7%) type of personnel records readily available in various departments at Liwale District Council. Others include health and social security records, letter of transfer, notification of termination/death and retirement, medical report, wages and salary slip, and copy of birth certificate. Conclusion: It is recommended that Liwale district council should address the challenges faced in the management of personnel records for better and fair decision-making.

Sustaining Fairness via Incremental Learning

Machine learning systems are often deployed for making critical decisions like credit lending, hiring, etc. While making decisions, such systems often encode the user's demographic information (like gender, age) in their intermediate representations. This can lead to decisions that are biased towards specific demographics. Prior work has focused on debiasing intermediate representations to ensure fair decisions. However, these approaches fail to remain fair with changes in the task or demographic distribution. To ensure fairness in the wild, it is important for a system to adapt to such changes as it accesses new data in an incremental fashion. In this work, we propose to address this issue by introducing the problem of learning fair representations in an incremental learning setting. To this end, we present Fairness-aware Incremental Representation Learning (FaIRL), a representation learning system that can sustain fairness while incrementally learning new tasks. FaIRL is able to achieve fairness and learn new tasks by controlling the rate-distortion function of the learned representations. Our empirical evaluations show that FaIRL is able to make fair decisions while achieving high performance on the target task, outperforming several baselines.

LUCID: Exposing Algorithmic Bias through Inverse Design

AI systems can create, propagate, support, and automate bias in decision-making processes. To mitigate biased decisions, we both need to understand the origin of the bias and define what it means for an algorithm to make fair decisions. Most group fairness notions assess a model's equality of outcome by computing statistical metrics on the outputs. We argue that these output metrics encounter intrinsic obstacles and present a complementary approach that aligns with the increasing focus on equality of treatment. By Locating Unfairness through Canonical Inverse Design (LUCID), we generate a canonical set that shows the desired inputs for a model given a preferred output. The canonical set reveals the model's internal logic and exposes potential unethical biases by repeatedly interrogating the decision-making process. We evaluate LUCID on the UCI Adult and COMPAS data sets and find that some biases detected by a canonical set differ from those of output metrics. The results show that by shifting the focus towards equality of treatment and looking into the algorithm's internal workings, the canonical sets are a valuable addition to the toolbox of algorithmic fairness evaluation.

Receiving credit: On delegation and responsibility

Evidence has shown that blame for a “bad” decision can be shifted by delegating the decision to someone else. We conduct experiments using a four-player delegated dictator game to examine whether the reverse is also true: does one receive credit for taking a “good” decision as compared to delegating the decision to someone else? Our results indicate that the answer is affirmative. A person receives higher rewards when she makes a fair decision herself than when a delegate does. This indicates that responsibility attribution is a double-edged sword that applies to both bad and good outcomes.

Combating Unknown Bias with Effective Bias-Conflicting Scoring and Gradient Alignment

Models notoriously suffer from dataset biases which are detrimental to robustness and generalization. The identify-emphasize paradigm shows a promising effect in dealing with unknown biases. However, we find that it is still plagued by two challenges: A, the quality of the identified bias-conflicting samples is far from satisfactory; B, the emphasizing strategies just yield suboptimal performance. In this work, for challenge A, we propose an effective bias-conflicting scoring method to boost the identification accuracy with two practical strategies --- peer-picking and epoch-ensemble. For challenge B, we point out that the gradient contribution statistics can be a reliable indicator to inspect whether the optimization is dominated by bias-aligned samples. Then, we propose gradient alignment, which employs gradient statistics to balance the contributions of the mined bias-aligned and bias-conflicting samples dynamically throughout the learning process, forcing models to leverage intrinsic features to make fair decisions. Experiments are conducted on multiple datasets in various settings, demonstrating that the proposed solution can alleviate the impact of unknown biases and achieve state-of-the-art performance.

Perusakan di Lingkungan Publik (Vandalisme)

This study aims to determine the legal arrangements related to vandalism in the criminal law code (KUHP) in Indonesia, the social, economic and environmental impacts of vandalism in the public environment, law enforcement against acts of vandalism in the public environment, as well as a comparison of legal arrangements and handling cases of vandalism in Indonesia with other countries. The results of this study reveal that legal arrangements related to vandalism in Indonesia involve the creation, implementation and enforcement of legal rules that regulate the relationship between individuals, groups and institutions in society. The Indonesian Criminal Code (KUHP) provides relevant articles to deal with acts of vandalism, with a variety of sanctions depending on the circumstances of the case. Acts of vandalism in the public sphere have broad and complex impacts in social, economic and environmental aspects. Socially, vandalism disrupts social harmony and undermines community values. From an economic perspective, vandalism causes significant financial losses for owners of damaged facilities. In the environmental aspect, vandalism affects public awareness of environmental protection. The effectiveness of law enforcement against vandalism still requires improvement in terms of investigations, fair court decisions, and community cooperation with law enforcement officials. Doodling is classified as vandalism because it is against the law and has widespread negative impacts, including social, economic and environmental impacts.
 Keywords vandalism, legal arrangements, legal effectiveness

Assessment Literacy: Changing Cultures, Enculturing Change in Hong Kong

Abstract Teacher assessment literacy has gained significant attention in recent years due to its critical role in learning and teaching. Various theoretical and empirical conceptualizations of this construct have been emerging with more recent emphasis on building teachers’ knowledge and skills. The aim is to make highly contextualized, fair, consistent and trustworthy assessment decisions to inform learning and teaching to effectively support both student and teacher learning. This article explores changes in secondary English language teachers’ assessment literacy following the introduction of school-based assessment for learning as part of high stakes secondary school assessment reform in Hong Kong. Drawing on teacher questionnaires completed by almost 4,500 teachers who undertook a common professional development course conducted over the first six years of assessment reform (2005 – 2011), this paper explores the impact of professional development on teachers’ assessment literacy. Despite Hong Kong’s deeply ingrained competitive examination-oriented culture, an analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data from pre- and post-program evaluations demonstrate signs of positive change in teacher attitudes, confidence and practices, in particular in using assessment criteria, designing and implementing appropriate assessment tasks, involving learners more actively in the assessment process, making trustworthy assessment decisions and providing effective feedback and feed-forward to students to improve student learning. The findings of the study suggest that changes in assessment culture are possible, provided teachers are well supported. The implications for assessment reform and for the development of teacher assessment literacy more generally are also discussed.

Stakeholder Management Practices and Customer Satisfaction in the Public Sector in Rwanda: A Case of Rwanda Water and Sanitation Corporation

Stakeholder management plays an important role in organizational management. The study examined the influence of stakeholder management practices on customer satisfaction in the public sector in Rwanda. The specific objectives included to establish the influence of stakeholder mapping on customer satisfaction, to examine the influence of defensive stakeholder management practice on customer satisfaction and lastly to ascertain the influence of offensive stakeholder management practice on customer satisfaction in public sector in Rwanda case of WASAC.  This study employed a case study and descriptive research design to explore issues of stakeholder management and how it influences customer satisfaction. The population size was 172,184 people constituting of external customers and internal customers of WASAC mainly employees, heads of directorates and board of Directors. A sample size of 399 respondents was computed using Yamane’s formula though 324 respondents are the ones who returned questionnaires. The sampling technique used in identifying respondents was stratified, purposive and simple random sampling. Data was collected through interviews and structured questionnaires and analysed using IBM SPSS Version 22. The data was presented in tables. Descriptive statistics findings did indicate 55%-100% of respondents in support of implementation of stakeholder mapping and defensive stakeholder management practices at WASAC. However, 20% and below supported the implementation of offensive stakeholder management practice at WASAC. Pearson correlation coefficient was found to be 0.560, 0.685 and -0.620 for stakeholder mapping, defensive stakeholder management practice and offensive stakeholder management practice respectively. Additionally, beta coefficients were 0.132, 0.235 and -0.211 with corresponding p values of 0.038, 0.001 and 0.024. The study therefore concluded that stakeholder mapping and defensive stakeholder management practices positively and significantly influence customer satisfaction while offensive stakeholder management practice negatively and significantly influence customer satisfaction. The study recommended managers of WASAC to conduct stakeholder analysis to identify all stakeholders, their characteristics and how they relate with the company, companies to adopt transparency and fairness in decision making process involving selection and recruitment, and lastly democracy and inclusivity should be practiced by companies and avoid any form of corrupt deals and practices for better performance and customer satisfaction. Keywords: Stakeholder management practices, customer satisfaction, public sector, stakeholder mapping, defensive stakeholder management, offensive stakeholder management

Criminal Liability Against Perpetrators of HOAX Spread in Indonesia

The purpose of this article is to explain and examine the responsibility of perpetrators in the criminal act of disseminating information in the form of misleading fake news, especially based on Law Number 11 of 2008, let alone the blurring of norms related to the phrase fake and misleading news. One of the main problems of crime that occurs in society is the use of social media so the government needs to support the development of information technology through legal infrastructure and regulation so that the use of information technology must be carried out safely to prevent its misuse by taking into account the religious and socio-cultural values of the Indonesian people. This article is in the form of normative juridical research that is useful for finding solutions to legal issues that are the focus of study. The results showed that the perpetrators of spreading false news apply the principle "what must be proven is about the inability to be criminally responsible, and not about the ability to be criminally responsible" so that it can produce a fair legal decision as well as certainty and usefulness. If proven, the perpetrator can be sentenced based on the provisions in Article 28 paragraph (1) of the Electronic Information and Transaction Law with criminal threats based on Article 45A paragraph (1) of Law 19 Number 2016 with a maximum imprisonment of 6 (six) years and/or a maximum fine of IDR 1 billion.

How Endogenous System Bias Can Distort Decision-Making in Criminal Justice Systems

Most judicial, regulatory, and administrative systems, at least formally, are concerned with the fairness and transparency of their decisions concerning the public. Fairness and transparency of criminal justice operations are critical to creating trust in the legal system and assuring people that the larger social system is legitimate and worthy of support. However, deviations from objective and fair decision-making can be concealed when key actors who are responsible for deciding outcomes in their organizations are also responsible for collecting, assembling, evaluating, and presenting the information on which their decisions are based. Under these conditions such systems are at risk of what we term “endogenous system bias,” where data are acquired and altered in ways to justify desired outcomes that are neither fair nor transparent. The purpose of this paper is to: (1) develop a general model of decision-making constraints that can produce endogenous system bias, (2) review research on endogenous system bias at two key decision stages in one institution: the criminal justice system and (3) conduct an empirical examination of the potential effect of endogenous system bias on law enforcement investigations and prosecutorial charging in a sample of criminal homicide cases in the USA. Implications for law, policy, and social scientific methodology are discussed.

Implications of bias in automated writing quality scores for fair and equitable assessment decisions.

Recent advances in automated writing evaluation have enabled educators to use automated writing quality scores to improve assessment feasibility. However, there has been limited investigation of bias for automated writing quality scores with students from diverse racial or ethnic backgrounds. The use of biased scores could contribute to implementing unfair practices with negative consequences on student learning. The goal of this study was to investigate score bias of writeAlizer, a free and open-source automated writing evaluation program. For 421 students in Grades 4 and 7 who completed a state writing exam that included composition and multiple choice revising and editing questions, writeAlizer was used to generate automated writing quality scores for the composition section. Then, we used multiple regression models to investigate whether writeAlizer scores demonstrated differential predictions of the composition and overall scores on the state-mandated writing exam for students from different racial or ethnic groups. No evidence of bias for automated scores was observed. However, after controlling for automated scores in Grade 4, we found statistically significant group differences in regression models predicting overall state test scores 3 years later but not the essay composition scores. We hypothesize that the multiple choice revising and editing sections, rather than the scoring approach used for the essay portion, introduced construct-irrelevant variance and might lead to differential performance among groups. Implications for assessment development and score use are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).