Books / Law as Code in Practice: French Family Benefits / Chapter 13
Part V · Chapter 13
Explaining a Decision to the Recipient
Contents of Law as Code in Practice: French Family Benefits
By the end you can distinguish a saved calculation, an attached notice and an administrative explanation.
Lawyer: the four disclosure headings.
Analyst: inputs and operations behind an amount.
Developer: attach a document without treating its prose as a new legal fact.
The Fontaines’ file
“We received a number. Can you explain how you reached it?” Predict whether a proof of the amount also explains who made the administrative decision.
This chapter uses FontaineRemise, the Fontaine household in the recorded notice scene: three children, €40,000 resources, no age supplements, full-rate AF of €349.06. It is a different fictional file from the Garniers’ in Chapter 4, not another reading of the same facts.
The four headings
The pinned R. 311-3-1-2 CRPA, in force since 1 September 2017, includes:
Le degré et le mode de contribution du traitement algorithmique à la prise de décision
English gloss: the degree and manner in which the algorithm contributes to the decision. R. 311-3-1-2 governs information supplied on request, in intelligible form and subject to legally protected secrets. Separately, L. 311-3-1 and R. 311-3-1-1 CRPA distinguish the statement in a decision from the information disclosed on request. L. 311-3-1, introduced by the 2016 Digital Republic Act, requires an explicit statement when an individual decision is based on algorithmic processing, subject to its statutory exception. R. 311-3-1-1 specifies the statement’s content, including the processing purpose and how to exercise disclosure rights. It is not a claim that a proof automatically fulfils every disclosure requirement.
| Heading | What the demonstration can supply | What the administration must confirm |
|---|---|---|
| Contribution of the algorithm | Rules calculate the proposed amount and procedural dates | Actual human review, discretion and decision-making role |
| Data and sources | Fictional household facts, their provenance and pinned texts | Which administrative data were actually processed |
| Parameters and weights | BMAF and selected AF rounding reading | Applicable settings in the operational decision |
| Operations | Applied rules and proof steps | Intelligible explanation appropriate to the recipient |
Traitement algorithmique → algorithmic processing; notification → notice → the attached Notification document. Explaining a benefit calculation does not explain selection for a control investigation: that requires the grounds and data of the selection process.
An attached document
This excerpt of the Fontaine case (FontaineRemise) records a document’s identity and content fingerprint:
evidence Notification: vocab.source_records::Resource {
id "fontaine-fictional-generated-notice";
status presented;
observed_at @2026-04-15T12:00:00+01:00;
recorded_at @2026-04-15T12:00:00+01:00;
uri "resources/documents/notification.fr.txt";
content_hash "sha256:eb4175829493575f46e646c31c24f77308d54eab822111a5161c5e80f366f21f";
}The attachment records the text presented with the case. It does not turn statements in the notice into adjudicated facts. A changed notice needs its own fingerprint and review.
The recorded file
Alongside the AF calculation, this fictional file contains a request for remission of a housing-aid overpayment debt whose merits are not disputed. To read the dates below as legal deadlines, assume that the paying body received the request on 15 April 2026, the case’s supplied request date. Under CCH R. 825-3, these dates concern the paying body’s acknowledgement and notification of its remission decision. They are not deadlines for awarding AF or for the recipient to lodge an appeal.
| Question | Recorded answer |
|---|---|
| AF amount, without age supplements | €349.06 established |
| Acknowledgement deadline, assuming receipt on 15 April | 30 April 2026 established |
| Decision notification deadline under the supplied request date | 15 June 2026 established |
The decision-notice scene preserves the five questions and a full French verbalisation recorded on 9 October 2026, through the local MCP recording server 0.1.0. That is the server version, not a CLI version. The two deadline questions were repeated on 11 October with law 0.1.12 in Chapter 12.
The French notice is a demonstration. A native French legal reviewer has not qualified it as ready to send. Its record of a successful verbalisation is a technical result, not legal or editorial approval.
Change one thing
Add a new human determination or correct an input. Recalculate the relevant question, then regenerate and review the notice. Editing its prose alone does not update the calculation. For a decency question reserved to an authority, follow Chapter 9 before describing a favourable housing decision.
What this gives the fund
The recipient’s explanation can be checked against the same saved answer used by the caseworker. The four headings also expose information that a calculation cannot supply: how the administration used it and what a person actually decided.
Where Catala stands on this
Catala 1.3.0 provides computation traces for inspecting intermediate steps (Catala book, ch. 2.4), alongside scenario tests and continuous integration (ch. 3.3). Arxo adds proof-bearing answers and content-hashed case documents as built-in forms; Catala 1.3.0 has no dedicated built-in case-document attachment form. An application can preserve and explain its results. Here the attachment connects a specific notice to the file; it does not establish CRPA compliance or supply the human role.
Exercise
- Why is €349.06 different from the Garnier amount in Chapter 4?
- Which heading specifically addresses the algorithm’s contribution to the decision, including the human role?
- Can the demonstration notice be sent as a legally approved template?