DataLex XAI in Rules-as-Code the six-feature checklist for engineered governance

Why it matters for NETEVO

The XAI-in-RaC framework is the academic mirror of NETEVO's "paper governance vs. engineered governance" argument. Mowbray et al.'s six features become a board-ready audit checklist: a policy that cannot demonstrate all six is paper governance; a control that demonstrates all six is engineered governance.

Six features, six testable properties. Each feature converts to an engineering requirement rather than a drafting aspiration: transparency and traceability require that an encoded rule's decision path be inspectable and reconstructable after the fact; availability and sustainability require the encoding to stay accessible and maintained as the underlying instrument moves; links to legal sources require every encoded rule to carry a citation back to the provision it implements; accountability requires a named owner for the encoding. A governance claim that cannot demonstrate these properties in operation is precisely the paper-governance failure mode the framework exposes.

Where it sits in the methodology. Rules-as-code is the foundation layer of the Law-to-Code Methodology, and this entry is its explainability spine: the six features serve as acceptance criteria for encoded obligations in Layer 4 governance work, and the AustLII DataLex tradition anchors that methodology in Australian intellectual lineage — the same lineage the About page's methodology section traces.