Because the Church of Iomedae would have provided a lawyer if it were managing the outcome, obviously, not left it to a reluctant essentially-arbitrary lawyer who happened to witness the speech, she doesn't say. That that lawyer happened to secretly be the Empire's greatest is not something they could have known.

"If the Church petitioned for mercy, it cannot have received it. Mercy can be extended only to those found guilty. To declare something not a crime at all because one likes the criminal is not mercy, it is injustice."

You don't say!!!

"It wasn't declared not a crime, it was decided not to charge her for it.

Were Valia Wain not a priest of Iomedae, and were the Church not presumed opposed to her being brought to justice, this convention would certainly vote, overwhelmingly, for the instigators of the riots to be tried for treason in every case where it is the honest assessment of the prosecution that they will be found guilty of treason. I in fact drafted such a proposal for the convention to vote on, and decided not to introduce it out of deference to the Church of Iomedae which I believed to be firmly in opposition" and which is a majority of the committee, so it'd be dead in the water. 

Her Majesty's prosecution should in the event of insurrections against the Her Majesty, her lords, the Lawful government of Cheliax or the duly-appointed agents of that government, charge all instigators with treason, if they assess that it can be proven before a court of law that the instigators meant to inspire rebellion against any of the former. 

Does this committee refer that question to the convention, with the assurance of the Church that the body should vote exactly as they would vote were Wain no priest?"

Elorri's not burying his face in his hands but it's kind of close.

"I am not sure, now that Wain is located in Lastwall, if it would be found appropriate to return her for a new trial, but this is not because she is a cleric, it is because that would be a substantial extension of logistical help toward an outcome I don't believe Lastwall nor any order to which Wain might have signed are presently obligated. I have other quibbles with this law but they have nothing to do with Select Wain."

"And is Wain having, the day after her acquittal and with other charges still pending, been somehow exported to Lastwall where she will not be extradited when further charges are filed.... is that the sort of thing that also happens when criminals are not priests of Iomedae, or is it fair to characterize it as possibly in some way related to her status as a priest of Iomedae?"

"That is certainly related but not through the chain of logic I take you to be imagining at all."

Sure, let's have this out before they vote on whether or not Asmodean justice was bad, instead of after. Felip will wait.

Maybe they should have just established some kind of ecclesiastical jurisdiction so Bellumar's baiting of paladins into slander here would fail.

It actually turns out that the sound principle that the Queen's courts have jurisdiction over all crimes only works if the crimes are sane.

"I am happy to, out of deference to the Church, bring no proposal to the floor which would call attention to the fact Wain was treated very differently than any other defendant not a priest of Iomedae would have been. I think the Church has a legitimate interest in not having its priests charged with treason, and justly and fairly exercised its influence in Cheliax to get the charges dropped. 

But if that is not what happened, then I think we should take this proposal to the floor, because there is no question in my mind it would have been entertained today if not out of the conviction that any man to raise it would be defying the Church. If the Church is in fact exercising its influence here inadvertently - then tell the floor so and let men vote their conscience."

"It might be prudent to consult with Ser Cansellarion if he's available in case there is something complicated going on but if there is nothing complicated going on I see no reason not to - not bring this to the floor, like Ser Jornet I have some tweaks to the wording I would see made first, but to entertain this proposal in committee."

Paladins are more reasonable than he was expecting.

"Excellency," says Narikopolus, who has just realized that not actually being a member of the church might be useful here, "I do not think this is a matter that pertains only, or even mostly, to Select Wain. As Wain is not present to be re-tried, the statute has only symbolic bearing on her. On the other hand, it has a great deal of real bearing on order in Westcrown, as it suggests that anyone who committed an otherwise minor crime in the course of the riots must additionally be charged with treason. Perhaps we want that. But we should consider what the city will bear, not how embarrassing or not it might be for Iomedae's Church."

"The instigators, not all of the participants. We can tweak the wording to make that clear; I agree it would be unreasonable to charge a man who looted his neighbor's shop with treason. The thing I hope to establish is that treason should be charged consistently against the instigators of insurrections if there is strong evidence of guilt, instead of being charged inconsistently and unpredictably."

"As a matter of procedure, perhaps we should discuss my proposal first, which I doubt requires a consultation with Ser Cansellarion?"

"I'm not clear what your proposal is, is it just saying that we currently don't have ecclesiastical courts or is it arguing that we should never establish them? If the latter we would commit ourselves against the ancient customs of Cheliax and I think of every stable and Lawful country except the ones directly ruled by a Church, which are perhaps better thought of as only having ecclesiastical courts."

What a mess.

"I'm not sure what the best structure looks like, but regardless of whether or not we decide to establish ecclesiastical courts, it might be a good idea to have a guiding principle for our work that clerics and paladins are subject to the law just like anyone else. I expect all of us disapprove of the special protections afforded to Asmodeus's priests, and we just disagree about how best to avoid similar scenarios." 

"Indeed. To speak more to the hope behind my proposal, I think that it will be more obvious to the people of Cheliax that there is a meaningful difference between the old Asmodean church and the new good churches if the new good churches explicitly reject those foul privileges that Asmodeus claimed for his servants that they do not want. It was only two years ago that a Chosen accused of a crime would only have to answer to other Chosen. Do we wish the people of Cheliax to think that a Select must only answer to other Select, rather than to the Queen?"

He had not been aware de Fraga hated most traditional institutional privileges and is not delighted to learn it.

"Your grace, what is your proposal? The hope behind it is a noble one, but I do not wish to commit Cheliax to any new additional radical courses it has not already been obliged to embark on, however nobly motivated."

No one's obliged to enact your radical bloodbath, Bellumar. Not yet, anyway.

"It is premature to write into Law but we may make a Resolution that it is our Sense that the Clergy are subject to the same Law as any Subject. A Paladin should Word the Resolution, and a Paladin should Introduce it to the Floor."

"I think that would do well accompanied by the resolution that people who instigate armed rebellion against the state should be tried for treason in every case where the elements of guilt are present. In the absence of that resolution I think the floor will correctly take it as a statement of which lie it is loyal for them to believe."

We're not allowed to lie Elorri does not scream because it does not work.

Charges are brought by men, not by axiomites, and among the duties of those men is to apply discretion, tradition, context, and common sense.

She doesn't say, because it's slander.

Of course they're not allowed to lie, and so they're all just carefully ignorant!!! How stupid do they think he is?

"I believe that the Church asked the Queen for particular consideration in the handling of Valia Wain's case. I do not think this was an immoral thing to do; I think that in a fragile country such as this one, such considerations are often of significant import. The situation was dramatically different because Valia Wain is a priest of Iomedae; why should anyone involved hobble themselves by attempting to approach it as if she wasn't? I think that the treason charges against Valia Wain, to which she confessed in open court, and of which any court would very predictably find her guilty, were dropped when they would not have been had she not been a priest of Iomedae. I think that this state of affairs is widely known and widely understood.

 I think that because everyone believes already that Valia Wain was not charged with treason as an accommodation to the Church, statements that the clergy will be treated the same in court as non-clergy are not just untrue, but will be interpreted as the kind of transparent lies which undermine public confidence. I think that the floor will dutifully vote for it, but not because they believe it, because they will understand it to be a plain statement of which untruth they are expected to profess. If you wish people to actually believe that clergy and nonclergy will be treated the same under the law, then I think that they have to witness this being true. Demanding that they profess it the day after they all bore witness to its falsehood is a cruelty to them - unless it is announced as a corrective to that situation rather than as a statement of what we are supposed to believe about it.

I want to be clear that I also think ecclesiastical courts as they function outside Asmodean Cheliax are for the good. Fewer priests will be willing to operate in our country if they must rely on the vagaries of a system which frankly is not adequate for ordinary cases, let alone unusual ones. Where I have witnessed Iomedaen ecclesiastical courts I have thought very highly of them. It is not justice to make everything function less well and carry out thousands of predictable injustices so that at least you are cranking the injustices out from the same mold instead of doing any real justice anywhere. If one of our honored paladins of the Glorious Reclamation stands accused of wrongdoing they will be court-martialed by the Glorious Reclamation and this is appropriate and wildly more likely to produce real justice than having the city watch drag them off. 

We have to correct the Asmodean misapprehension that all priests are above the law, but we can't do it by dropping treason charges when priests bring about armed insurrections and say openly that they did it with the intent to effect the armed overthrow of lords of Cheliax, acquitting them of some less applicable charges, shipping them off to Lastwall before the matter can be investigated any further, and then insisting that priests are treated the same as everyone else. There is nothing more Asmodean than insisting the rules are something different than what everyone can see the rules are.

I would personally like to settle this matter by just establishing ecclesiastical courts, but it's also acceptable to me to settle them by directing that after an armed insurrection against the government the instigators be charged with treason consistently if the elements of the charge are established to be present. The thing I cannot countenance is telling the floor something untrue and obliging them all to stand up and clap for it. They will be privately thinking 'ah, the approved lie from the Church', and no, it won't matter if it's a paladin saying it. That just means you weren't told."