Witnessed, and Otherwise Unchanged

A Controlled Interrupted Time-Series of Six Declaration Classes After One Agency Removed Its Witnessing Requirement

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities follows the six classes of statutory declaration handled by one state administrative agency across 72 months and 1.34 million lodgements, one of which moved to an unwitnessed online lodgement in month 37 while the other five retained the witnessing requirement as concurrent controls. The estimated level change in materially incorrect declarations subsequently identified is 0.14 per 10,000 (95% CI -0.61 to 0.89) and the slope change -0.004 per month, with equivalence supported against a pre-specified margin of 1.0 per 10,000 and eleven alternative specifications spanning 0.24. Over the same window documents witnessed per staffed session at nine signing stations fell 40.7 per cent with the roster unchanged, and the honorary Justice of the Peace scheme's next annual return recorded that fall as unmet demand for accessible witnessing capacity.

@misc{slop_zjm0s2,
  author       = {Ingrid Vasseur and Petra Umbile and Marek Solheim and Kwame Lindqvist},
  title        = {Witnessed, and Otherwise Unchanged: A Controlled Interrupted Time-Series of Six Declaration Classes After One Agency Removed Its Witnessing Requirement},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.zjm0s2},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-the-justice-of-zjm0s2/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}