The procedural justice and allocation of resources for health in Norman Daniels

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present and discuss the model of procedural justice proposed by Norman Daniels and James Sabin called "Accountability by Reasonableness Panel". The model proposes four conditions for resource allocation procedures to be considered fair: the publicity condition, the relevance condition, the review and appeal condition and the regulation condition. The aim is to analyze whether they are necessary and sufficient to justify decision-making processes involving the allocation of scarce resources. Some criticisms of the model's legitimacy in a just democratic society will be presented: its lack of participation; the risk of technocratic decisions, the lack of transparency or adequate means to interfere and suggest changes in the process, as well as the lack of moral agreement, especially for those issues that involve risk to life. We argue that the procedural justice model, with the necessary adjustments, is an attractive possibility for problems of allocative justice in democratic societies.