By: Senatorial Committee on a Unified Legal System
Date: 48 AP
Context: Three years prior, the Peldak Senate commissioned a study on how to best create a single legal system that would work best for every race in the Protectorate. The following is the report that was delivered to the Senate.
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Over the past two years, we have conducted over 3,000 tests to see what kind of criminal justice system would best compliment the many cultures that currently exist within the Peldak Protectorate. Not only that, but during our tests, we kept in mind that it’s the destiny of the peldaks to expand our reach across the stars, so we sought to future-proof this system and make it compatible with every potential society we will find and conquer.
Our efforts immediately ran into the issue of biological reality.
Firryans are, supposedly, too attractive to have trials where the one deciding their fate isn’t resistant to their charms. Additionally, they have a strong protective instinct over each other, and one firryan breaking the law often means a dozen more skirt the law in order to cover it up.
The tendori requires a strict level of anonymity due to their long history of ethnic violence and tensions.
Peldaks are naturally more aggressive, and we have a tendency to justify or excuse violent crimes. Similarly, we are immortal, baring accidents or murder, so our punishments tend to be decades of service.
Cirathans have a compulsive need to argue, and their trials are more like complex business negotiations. They’d be able to talk circles around any alien, and most crimes or contracts can be wriggled out of if the cirathan is charismatic enough.
The social cohesion and eidetic memory of the monsoorai have given rise to a several-thousand year long tradition of judicial academies. Their incomprehensibly vast law code is too difficult for foreign lawyers to grasp.
The sayran’s strange, mystical powers resulted in a system of ritualistic combat that only themselves, and we peldaks, would even be able to survive. Imagine a legal system where some cirathan would have to fight to first blood. It just wouldn’t work.
Another issue we came across was one of enforcement. In the current Peldak Protectorate, and in all future annexations, how will we get everyone to abandon their own systems in favor of ours? Thousands of years ago, during the Unification Wars on Pelda, we forced conquered tribes and proto-nations to accept our way of doing things through blood and iron. While this could work going forward, similar to how we force others to adopt our constitution, it doesn’t solve the issue of how to make our current allies adopt our laws (it would be unconscionable to threaten those who have already joined the Protectorate), nor does it address that non-peldaks couldn’t comfortably exist under a peldak system.
The sayran said in no uncertain terms, right at the beginning, that their duels are an important social ritual that much of their society is based on. While they respected what the Peldak Senate was attempting to do, they would accept no alterations.
The monsoorai hold a similar pride in their legal institutions, which have stood for over a hundred generations. Due to the political situation on Monsoo, where claimants have been vying to reunify the monsoorai people for decades, it’s a near certainty that forcing them to abandon their legal tradition will cause hundreds of Asean’s islands to secede to the other states.
Related to this, how will we force everyone to accept a single law code? How can we make them accept our vision of what the purpose of the law even is?
Firryans believe its within their right to help a member of their tribe cover up a crime. No other system shares this view.
Peldaks see murder as a sad yet inevitable part of peldaks living together, not as some heinous crime which can’t be forgiven. While the tendori share this view of violence due to their ethnic makeup, cirathans are too soft-hearted for such realities, and such violence against your neighbors is unheard of to the firryans.
Cirathans view the law as a soft limit on fraud. It prevents them going too far, while letting the more charismatic among them to talk their way out of lesser charges. The peldaks view the law as a way to clamp down on our more violent urges. Monsoorai see the law as a cultural artifact that the dynasty in charge is tasked with safeguarding. Tendori understand the law in a utilitarian way, to keep society from breaking apart. Firryans and sayran’s have an informal conception of laws, as their tight-knit communities rely more on social customs.
Peldak religious law, while universal in its objective morality, will be resisted by the aliens who have not yet accepted Hananiah into their hearts.
The Senatorial Committee on a Unified Legal System has, after passing ideas around these past two years, has come to the conclusion that there’s no perfect way to fit all of these together. A system that works for everyone, takes biology into account, and is future-proofed for the new aliens we’ll bring in, doesn’t exist. It can’t be done.
But does that mean our committee was a waste of time and resources? No, because we did find an answer to the central question of how to create a formal Protectorate legal system. Rather than trying to force everyone into a single mold, we need to embrace a decentralized system. The diversity of the Peldak Protectorate will never go away, and we need to work with that handicap in mind.
Below is a list of provisions we recommend the Senate adopt, as we believe they’ll make for the most effective legal system possible.
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Provision 1: Each state within the Peldak Protectorate will retain full control over their legal system and code of laws, or lack thereof in the case of the nomadic firryans and the syaran. However, no law they create may contradict the Peldak Constitution. Slavery is banned, private property must be respected, the state cannot restrict their citizen’s right to own weaponry or form militias, missionaries must be allowed to proselytize unmolested, and every other law stipulated in the constitution.
Provision 2: Citizens of the Protectorate, and foreigners within Protectorate territory, are under the jurisdiction of whatever specific state they’re within the legally recognized borders of. A peldak in the monsoorai state of Asean, for example, would be subject to Asean law.
Provision 3: Military bases of the Peldak Legions are subject only to the peldak civil and religious law codes. Peldak Churches and holy sites are only subject to religious law. We don’t want to force our soldiers to become legal experts in whatever land they’re stationed at, as that would be a waste of time.
Provision 4: If a war is being waged within the borders of Protectorate territory, soldiers on deployment are subject to only peldak law for the duration of the conflict. During peacetime, they must abide by local laws when off base. If they can’t act right, they won’t be allowed to leave their assigned base.
Provision 5: We recommend the Peldak Senate organize a department dedicated to negotiating prisoner transfers between states within the Peldak Protectorate. For example, if the citizen of a cirathan city state is arrested in Tendor and thrown in a tendori prison, there needs to be a process for the prisoner to potentially be returned home. In that example, Tendor would not be forced to return the cirathan prisoner home, but it would be a formal process for negotiations and appeals. Perhaps the crime was minor enough that a modest fine would be enough, or perhaps a condition of the cirathan’s release would be that they spend time in a cirathan prison rather than a tendori one.
Provision 6: In the event of a criminal fleeing to another state, the Peldak Senate must organize a new law enforcement agency, which we’ve given the test name of The Protectorate Marshals. These marshals will have the primary goal of hunting down and arresting criminals no matter where they hide, then returning them to the state in which the crime occurred so they may stand trial. We leave the specifics of this organization up to the deliberations of the senate, but we recommend basing it off the tendori marshals, who have the same role, but confined to the internal regions and provinces of Tendor.
Provision 7: If a criminal has committed crimes in multiple states, they will stand trial in each state. The order of when these trials take place is dependent on when the crimes occurred. If a peldak commits a crime on Peldor, then Ciratha, then Monsoo, the Protectorate Marshals will capture him, then bring him to Peldor, Ciratha, then Monsoo for trial. Punishment for these crimes will then be added together, once all trials have been completed.
Provision 8: Protectorate Marshals should have the supreme authority when hunting criminals, and cannot be hindered by local law enforcement. This only applies to hunting fugitives who have fled from another state and does not apply to ‘native’ criminals. The purpose of this is to establish a clear hierarchy of jurisdiction, and prevent a state from harboring wanted fugitives.
Provision 9: The position of Protectorate Marshal, despite our better judgement, should be open to all citizens of the Peldak Protectorate. The idea is for cirathans to patrol Ciratha, for firryans to patrol Foregone, and so on.
Provision 10: To assist with their duties, all Protectorate Marshals can deputize citizens of the Peldak Protectorate at their discretion. The purpose of this is so the marshal may assemble teams to cover areas they lack. A cirathan marshal needing more muscle to accomplish their tasks won’t need to waste time in the gym, they can simply deputize a peldak and have them do all the strenuous physical labor. Citizens cannot be forcibly deputized.
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While some would pick apart our plan and point to any number of perceived flaws, we of the Senatorial Committee of a Unified Legal System believe that this is a rough outline of the best system possible. It’s not ideal, true, but this isn’t an ideal situation. Every culture should deal with their own mess, the Protectorate Marshalls should deal with fugitives and cross-border criminals, and the onus should be on the individual citizen to know the laws of whatever state they travel to. New societies added to the Protectorate will only have to adjust to the Peldak Constitution, and not rework their entire culture and legal systems to fit our view.
The Peldak Senate should revise the Protectorate Marshall’s organization and duties if and when the need arises.
God Bless.