Legislative Quality Assurance by Computer Simulation — CALC 2025, Perth

Legalese and Monad Solutions co-presented at CALC 2025 — the Commonwealth Association of Legislative Counsel conference — in Perth, Western Australia. Our presentation was titled Legislative Quality Assurance by Computer Simulation.

Watch the presentation on YouTube

The core idea: computational tools can simulate the operation of proposed legislation before enactment — running test cases against draft rules, identifying inconsistencies, and verifying that the law produces intended outcomes. We demonstrated the approach using Western Australia's Dog Act, encoded in L4 and subjected to a systematic battery of test cases designed to surface edge cases and unintended consequences.

The demonstration showed how rules that read clearly in natural language can produce counterintuitive outcomes in specific situations — and how those outcomes can be reported to a legislative drafter in plain language, without requiring any knowledge of L4 or formal logic. The reception at CALC was encouraging, with several Commonwealth jurisdictions expressing interest in piloting the approach with live draft legislation.