Wait until you hear about “case law”. Just because it’s not on the law books doesn’t mean it’s not legally binding. If a court rules something unconstitutional or whatever, the law sometimes remains on the books instead of being removed. “Why bother writing and passing a bill to repeal a law when the court said it’s unenforceable?”

Only the programmed end result in code would be legally binding. Lawmakers would have a big interst in making sure the code is correct and provide incentives/change procedures accordingly.

The inmates in this article would be released immediately after the code-law is implemented; you could apply new tax laws (i.e. as a config file) to your accounting software.

Why maintain an obfuscated legal text when you need it in software anyway?