Judgment Authority Layer

Judgment Authority transforms Framework requirements into an explicit structure of decision rights, delegation conditions, responsibility, review, and consequence ownership.

Transformation Contract

• What transforms into this layer? Framework rules that specify what must be judged, the consequence level, and the relevant execution boundaries.
• What does this layer produce? A defined authority structure: who may decide, who may advise, who may execute, who bears consequences, and when delegation is invalid.
• How does it improve future decisions? It makes authority gaps, responsibility laundering, and unsafe automation visible before action.

Closed-Loop Role

• Depends on: Framework legitimacy criteria, organizational context, and remembered authority outcomes in Cognitive Assets.
• Improves: accountability, delegation clarity, review design, and consequence ownership.
• Modifies upstream: It can force Framework revision or Problem Space reframing when no legitimate authority exists for the proposed decision.

Core Questions

• who has the right to decide
• who carries the consequence
• who can delegate
• when delegation is invalid
• why automation cannot erase responsibility

Relationship to Cognitive Assets

Cognitive Assets preserve authority histories, delegation failures, and responsibility chains. They do not carry authority themselves. Their evidence improves later authority models, but a memory structure cannot decide who is allowed to judge.

Pages

• Judgment Authority Model
• Decision Responsibility
• Exit Right
• Judgment vs Automation

No Layer Is Terminal

Authority conditions constrain Applications and are revised when Reports or Cognitive Assets show that delegation, review, or responsibility assumptions failed.