Rules As Code

“Rules as Code” is a label adopted by people in governments working on the idea of encoding (or just marking up) legislation while it is being drafted, so that the logic of the resulting legislation can be “read” (and checked) by a computer, to improve the manner in which legislation is produced and the way in which it is available digitally. The idea is currently attracting attention in the legal community, particularly on the question of whether it will lead to automation replacing human interpretation of the law. This note briefly describes Rules as Code, at least as conceived by a legislative drafter. It argues that this conception of Rules as Code does not have the over-reaching ambitions that it may sometimes appear to harbour, and in particular does not trespass into removing key interpretative functions.