By: David Ramsay

David Ramsay — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 14:40:25 +0000

(A) I found ‘justice through transparency’ to be an interesting and challenging value– it strikes me as a nuanced and important point that transparency is paramount in any system with power and influence to change the lives of people, and it seems uncertainty in a process like this is hard on asylum seekers, citizens, and decision makers alike. The word ‘justice’ in this context was surprising to me. It’s not immediately apparent to me how justice is directly tied to transparency (I think of justice as fair/equitable treatment based on merit– every asylum seeker is treated equally poorly by the uncertainty). I assume it drives at a larger, ‘world’ definition of justice– which raises interesting questions in my mind about Justice and the duty of the Brazilian government to non-Brazilian citizens, and how we think about/apply the word ‘Justice’ to these kinds of issues?

(B) A new value to consider might be one centered around the technology itself — altering a pre-existing system with a technological speed-up could serve to entrench whatever process is sped up. It’s also interesting to me that this is framed as speeding up the process, not necessarily making better asylum decisions (assuming some percentage of people are denied), which implies that perhaps the complexity of the asylum decision process in Brazil is designed equitably but works slowly.

(C) I think it makes a lot of sense to have this kind of convening and it would likely be fruitful for all parties to be in a room together. I think the presence of some data science/technology experts (a role many here at the media lab could help with) would further improve the outcome.

Comments on: Asylum services

By: David Ramsay