The Cephiran legal system and law enforcement system

[Somariel]

So what do people think the Cephiran legal system and law enforcement system is like?

[Down]

I go medieval, of course, as usual, and give them a ~guild~ of judges alongside the mages and the priests (.........and all the others I come up with XD) but there is always the possibility that the Priests could, actually, act as judges, and that the courts are all 'church courts', given that the Pillar is the head of the religion as well as the head of the state, then offenses against them/their laws could easily be seen as a religious offense, and tried in church courts.

In which case - there should be a system of 'parishes', areas looked after by a priest/group of priests, and they hold court on a regular basis where charges are heard against members of the parish (people can accuse each other, bring witnesses etc along) and those people who are imprisoned for any charge would have their case heard. More difficult cases or appeals could be passed on to the high priest to judge in the court of the pillar?

The other way - the way I like playing - is that the laws governing Cephiro, its make up, power, creation, are all deep laws - mostly set by Mokona, like the laws about the Pillar. (Rules, perhaps, instead of laws?) And that it might be possible that there are people who can manipulate and alter those laws, when they are given that power by the people of Cephiro/the Pillar, and so they would debate law, create new legislation/rules, and then their 'magic' would be to alter the rules of Cephiro to bring those new rules into place. Essentially the same thing as the Knights do at the end of Rayearth 2, but on a smaller and collective scale. The Pillar has the power to do this, of course, but the Pillar also notionally has the power to keep the peace and to pray as much as is needed, and they still have the High Priest and the Guards to support them in this. So these 'Judges' would be like a parliament which debates and puts into place smaller things so the Pillar doesn't have to as well as Judging individual cases and altering the law to accommodate their judgement if the case proves that alteration to the current law is necessary (giving you the dual statute/common law basis of a system, but everything decided by common law decisions in working trials would be brought into the rules of the land in the same way as statute law, giving them equal weight?)

........As for enforcement, well, I always just point to the Guards. If they're needed, they're there already to deal with monsters and protect the Pillar, why shouldn't that extend to being a kind of when-required policeforce? ^^ They don't need to be all organised like a modern force - communities would act as witnesses and bring cases against their neighbours as necessary?

THOUGH it all does beg the question - can the Pillar pray for there to just be no crime?

And now I am going to stop rambling ^^;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

[Antoinette Veronica]

Will there be any crime in the first place? I imagine evil by Cephiro standards are things like disobeying "keep off the grass" signs or forgetting to sign books out of the libray.  It is in my crack fic ^^

[Somariel]

Antoinette: I would find it incredibly unrealistic if there wasn't the usual sorts of serious crime in Cephiro that have likely been going on for as long as mankind has existed. For what prompted this question in the first place, I direct you to my second post in the thread about imprisoning strong-willed mages.

[Down]

Did crime exist in Cephiro? Well.

*Points at Zagato's actions*

*Points at Alcyone attacking people.*

*Also, points at whoever made Ascot run away and live alone with his friends as a CHILD which certainly happened before the whole Emeraude thing kicked off* *and peoples suspicions of Lantis* *

Pretty certain they have crime given the criminal activity we SEE in the manga/anime... XD

I mean, the only other option is that the Pillar suppresses everyone's desires to do bad things, which is - actually an interesting idea for a dystopia if played right but eh, minority report did something similar and it's not the only thing which has done so~

[Antoinette Veronica]

Down, you are a genius! You mentioned what I had been thinking of, the Pillar suppressing people's desire to do bad things, because it is in the Canon the Pillar suppresses internal strife, so does that also include crime?

[Mokonalord]

Okay, this has been on my mind a lot lately because, you know, trying to write Lafarga brings up questions of just how many people were in the Inner/Outer Guard anyway? How many would be on guard at the castle verses patrolling the other areas of Cephiro? What was the ratio of magic users to swordspeople, and were they generally segregated to different duties entirely or was it more teams-made-up-of-different-specialties (if that makes any sense)? What happened to the other guard people at the castle when Zagato took over? Did they try to fight too? Did they give up when they saw he had Lafarga under his control? OR DID ZAGATO USE LAFARGA TO KILL THEM ALL? (if you want to go for maximum levels of fucked up)

What I've got so far is that overall, the Guard and any related enforcement would be pretty bare-bones, due to at least a few centuries of peace and a pillar ensuring the stability of the world in general. Pretty much just standby forces, nobody expecting to deal with anything more serious than the occasional monster attacks or low-level criminal activity, very laid back. The most serious/capable could work their way up the ranks to the Inner Guard, which were stationed at the castle with the pillar. Night time would definitely be more dangerous than day, just because the pillar has to sleep eventually, and things could easily crop up in those few hours.