"Present, Your Excellency."

Elorri was pulled off peacekeeping duty with the Reclamation force in the city for this. He was pulled to the peacekeeping job from his vacation in Lladó, which he was on as mandatory downtime from the relentlessly unfortunate task of doing justice on circuit with his horse the only non-awful company he encountered for days at a time.

The point of retaking Cheliax is so that it can stop damning people. Abrogail Thrune no longer wearing a crown is only a means to that end. The work is not done. And apparently this process is involved, for some reason.

"Present."

He smiles warmly. "Present."

Narikopolus did ask Count-Regent Napaciza whether he wanted to be his pick for judiciary, mostly because Delegate Oriol - the lawyer one - invited him by name. But Napaciza didn't actually want it, and while the man's judgement is fine in general, not saying anything unwise on this specific committee during this specific week seems like kind of a lot to ask of him if he doesn't actually want to be here.

So he's here himself. He doesn't intend to say much, but it does actually seem important that the committee have someone besides Oriol who, uh, has lived in Cheliax for longer than a year and a half. And given the general state of Chelish justice, and Her Majesty's obvious interest, this one is probably actually fairly important.

"Present."

"Present." He too, is smiling; he hasn't been in a room that's mostly paladins since leaving Mendev, and there's something he didn't realize he missed about the feeling.

Marta Llovera is Chelish by descent, Lastfolk by culture, and has been with the Reclamation from quite early in its existence. Her brother has had their family's old status restored, and is a baron now, but this is really quite irrelevant to her. The loss that concerns her is not a loss of land, it is the loss of several million souls. If the last year and a half are any indication, reclaiming those will be the work of another lifetime. She will not see its end. But no one, she supposes, has yet seen the end of evil. 

"Present."

Hiding behind one of the paladins on the way in is Lluïsa, who will not enter the room without a paladin as witness at all times, or Bellumar can just claim anything, and will. And will anyway, and any recourse is forbidden, but maybe a paladin's sense of righteousness will at some point be offended.

If she looks like she's walking to her own execution it's because she is.

Saying you're present is slander, falsely impugning the Count's ability to tell who's in the room with him. "I am Ready."

"Present." They're here so nothing blatantly evil can happen on this committee. Angela is tired of things being blatantly evil. She started relying on Detect Fiendish Presence and preferentially using that instead of Detect Evil because since she's been in Cheliax almost anyone she met who had an aura at all and was not specifically a cleric of Erastil was evil, evil, evil, evil, and she emulates the goddess of triage.

"I hope that our few remaining members will arrive shortly, but we have limited time and I do not wish to waste it, so I want to go ahead and begin. The first matter is the trial yesterday in which the judge was geased to rule only in accordance with the law. I think the Queen intended to bring about justice, by this, and I think it sufficed to get the result Her Majesty desired from the trial, but I have witnessed it causing great chaos at this convention. If magistrates can be presumed to exercise reasonable judgment, then the laws need be written with clarity and reasonableness, and we can borrow from the laws of other Lawful and Good allied countries," if his committee is full of paladins he can absolutely cater to them, "or borrow from the laws of Old Cheliax. But if judges are bound by magic to be barred from considering context or precedent and using their judgment, then - well, I've seen many committees lost down in the caverns of the Underdark trying to specify every possible thing so that there's no way for a judge even if they possess no common sense at all to misunderstand the job. That doesn't work. There's a reason no legal system works that way. If that is how our judiciary works we cannot benefit from the wisdom of any existing legal system.

I think it is good if judges, especially in prominent cases, are geased not to accept bribes and to rule with wisdom and attention to the law. I do not think that the country's laws can possibly be written so well as to remove the role of common sense. 

And so I have proposed this advice to the Queen for this committee to consider:

The laws of Cheliax cannot be written so as to encompass perfectly every possible case or situation. For this reason we are judged by men, not by axiomites, and among the duties of those men is to apply discretion, tradition, context, and common sense. Where geases are employed, they should be employed to prevent bribery, or straightforward abuses of power, and not to restrain judges from making reasonable decisions informed by context, tradition and common sense. No one should be convicted who was doing something the law never intended to prohibit, nor acquitted for conduct that plainly was meant to be illegal, merely because enchantment bars the judge from employing his own judgment.

This might well be what the Queen is already doing - I hope it is - but it's not what people understand her to be doing, and people are desperately trying to write laws on the assumption that they'll be interpreted by hostile mind-controlled literalistic automata, so I think it's important to clarify."

"The Queen may at present be limited in her supply of men who possess common sense that has not been warped, with all else in Hell's influence, toward cruelty and corruption." It is absolutely amazing what people think is just normal, or just what anyone would do in their situation, if they're Chelish.

Marit is the son of a minor baron near Solscrene, near the border with Andoran. When Andoran was still part of Cheliax they got refugees from across the borders, sometimes, and as best as Marit could tell Cheliax was the second-biggest problem on Golarion after Nidal, and significantly more tractable. His parents provided aid to the refugees, but Marit always felt that that wasn't solving the actual problem — it was still Good, but as long as Cheliax was under infernal rule, they would never save more than a handful of souls that way.

His best guess is that Ser Cansellarion has chosen him for this committee on the grounds that he has more than a year and a half of experience interacting with Chelish people, but he didn't actually explain one way or the other.

He arrives just after Bellumar starts to give his speech. "Apologies for my tardiness."

He greets the new paladin with a slight nod and continues speaking. "I agree that the perspectives of the Chelish people have been warped by Asmodeus, and that's a dire emergency, but this particular attempted solution is doing enormous harm to the ability of this convention to do its work and to public confidence in the rule of law. Perhaps we can offer the Queen some better solution."

Bellumar wants more cover for his Mephistophelean interpretations of the slander law to have free reign, in order to carry out his bloody purges, as expected.

Well, there's a real Mephistophelean in the room. (Recovering.)

"Bribery and Self-Enrichment are True Concerns but they are Minor. Those carrying out Justice, Paladins being Excepted, know well how to, and are Inclined to, cause the Text of any Contract or Law not Ironclad to a High Standard to be Construed For or Against whosoever they Choose. Any Law was until the Enthronement of her Majesty a Trap for the Reader, unless he be a Lawyer or have Friends in High Places. But the Judiciary is not made for We Lawyers. They are correct to Fear Traps, her Reign being Young and the People accustomed to an Evil Reign still."

"Do you have thoughts on how without compulsions, which does not bring about justice, nor do the people of Cheliax interpret it as just, nor is it compatible with the writing of just laws, that confidence might be established?"

"I don't see a particular conflict between following the letter of the law and the dictates of common sense, except where the law has been written in defiance of common sense. A reasonable law should certainly contain some space for judicial discretion. But if justice and common sense require that a judge actually go against the text of the law, then something fairly inexcusable was done in asking the judge to rule by such a law in the first place."

Laws not written in defiance of common sense may be a lost cause, given the present state of the Chelish government, but giving Chelish courts the freedom to disregard the law entirely seems little better.

Well, yes, but how to phrase them non-slanderously.

"I cannot know the Mind of her Majesty the Queen. My belief is that, the Judges being selected chiefly for Qualification as Judges, their Association with the Former Legal Profession, and the Fruits of their Legal Training, may be Surmounted only with Great Difficulty, and in no wise Available to the Public. Ensorcellment is as ever a Crude Instrument used in Dire Need. I am Reasonably Confident that her Majesty does not mean to establish a Permanently Ensorcelled Judiciary. For one it is a Great Expense of Magecraft."

"The Dim Reputation of Judges and Lawyers is unfortunately Well-Earned. For my own small part I have endeavored to Invert it. Where Lawyers have in the past Consorted with Hell I have instead Consorted with Heaven. Where Lawyers have in the past served the Archdevil of Contracts I have endeavored to... there is no God or Power of Heaven of whom I am yet Aware that fits the need Precisely; my Personal Fondness for Erastil aside, He is no Lawyerly God. At any rate such an Inverse Reputation is the work of Years to Cultivate and no Judiciary will have Confidence on the Morrow. Ensorcellment may Confuse the Public but such leaves it Quite Clear that whatever the Judge may be, he is no Th... he is no Infernal Tool."

Which slanders the Queen, but that is, perversely, safe; slanders herself and the legal profession, but self-slander has some protection; slanders Erastil, but he's a reasonable guy; almost slanders Blanxart, who would certainly not prosecute but using 'Thrune' as an insult is something she should really stop for his sake.

"I don't think a judge should ever rule contrary to the law. But I think rule in the present circumstances, with laws written by this inexperienced body, requires judges to have discretion, and it is not clear whether the current mind control permits them that discretion."

"When you say it's 'not clear' — are you saying you've asked and haven't been told, or asked and got an unclear explanation, or haven't asked at all, or something else entirely?"

Thanks for slandering Bellumar for me, paladin! I really hope you don't get killed.

"Some of the assembled body seemed to find examples very useful, in the slander case. Perhaps it would be worth asking for an hour of a judge's time to see how the geas permits them to rule on example cases, if the magic will kick in at all for unreal or past situations."

"After the trial I wrote to the Queen's staff inquiring as to the precise details of the compulsions that she disclosed her judges were under, having heard a great many queries and a great deal of confusion and anger, and having encountered the widespread belief that the miscarriage of justice we witnessed was due to the Queen's mind control rather than to the inadequate state of the law. I have not received a return reply, but would not have expected to, as I imagine the only people who could answer my question are very busy, and less than a day has passed since I inquired.

I can send a followup inquiry asking if this committee may question a geased judge to determine the extent to which the magic impedes them in arriving at predictable or reasoned judgments."

That's Bellumar slandering her, the midwife of any purported miscarriage, though lightly. The real ones are yet to come.

Not that there's any recourse.

Oh, how to be polite to Chelish counts. She hears the judge made quite clear that he felt that the young lady's behavior ought to be illegal, but that he felt no law actually prohibited it. Perhaps he was right. But if the judges are to rule based not on what the law is, but what they feel it ought to be, then it means very little for a good queen to be writing the laws in the first place.

"Perhaps the convention would be reassured if the wording of the judge's compulsion were made public. And if there is indeed a problem with that wording, we will identify it much more easily when we see it."

"I agree that the clarity of the law is of great importance, and if geas is to be used, the wording should be public.

I can't speak to what the judge was thinking, but I suspect the outcome of that case turned on the prosecutor's decision to not bring a case of treason. I would be more interested in hearing Her Majesty's reasoning for considering this a high treason case, and dismissing it out of hand, instead of the simple treason case that it seemed to be."

Her Majesty's reasoning was that she wanted Wain to be acquitted. Obviously. "I am not sure it is in the power of this convention to ask the courts to enforce existing laws, but if this committee does consider it in scope for us to do that then it does seem to me that Wain should be charged on the counts of which she is guilty and has not yet been charged."

"Is it possible that the Queen is replacing discretion in the findings of each trial partially with discretion in which trials to conduct at all?"

"My understanding is that this committee is charged with establishing procedures for how the judicial system in Cheliax ought to function, and not with directing the courts as regards any specific cases. Though I admit that many of the speakers on the floor seemed to have other understandings, so I may be incorrect."

"Well understood, Delegate Nerius."

"While there are many impressions on the floor I think certainly the more general approach is more principled. If there is an error in any specific trial it is likely a product of some systematic error. So instead of saying specifically, 'try the people who rebelled against the government in this particular case on treason charges', we should investigate the process which produced the current result, and make different recommendations. In a way, directing the courts just to address the specific error is missing the opportunity to correct the processes that generated that error."

"Well said. If the underlying principle is that we are to rely on prosecutorial discretion, I think that will not serve the cause of reliability of justice. The previous rule was arbitrarily evil; it will be difficult to convince the people of Cheliax that the new rule is arbitrarily good. Let it be predictable; I do not think the bettors in Valia's case were conflicted because of uncertainties of fact, and instead because of uncertainties of law, which seems like a clear failure."

The bettors on Valia Wain's trial are making a strong argument that civilized countries should outlaw gambling on the grounds that it preys on the slow-witted for little benefit, but Marit has enough political sense not to say that unless he's asked directly.

"I note that the Bettors made among others many Sizable Bets regarding the use of Malediction or Lions. This is perhaps an Uncertainty of Law, I grant."

"Perhaps this committee should draft rules around betting on trials. It seems an uncivilized custom, though I agree that it is useful as a warning sign and an indication that how the law will be judged is unpredictable to the people subject to that law."

Imran is of the opinion the bettors were confused because they still thought they lived in Cheliax, and from his experience in Osirion a financial stake in becoming less confused will help with this. "With no eyes, you cannot see trouble, and so you will believe there is none for longer. If the people of Cheliax believe that convicts will be torn apart by lions, what good does forbidding them to show that do? All it does is say that we cannot know they are in confusion."

He nods at Imran's point. "It is challenging enough to get information from the people directly; we may as well make use of what indirect means there are."

"I take your point, but don't you fear that some might encourage confusion, if they stand to profit off it?"

Sounds good to him.

"The Church of Abadar encourages betting on everything in Osirion, and there have been no great problems," he notices, "though you would want to speak to one of their priests to know more."

"I am not an Abadaran, but I am concerned that the current state of betting on the courts essentially allows for men to enrich themselves by preying on their slow-witted neighbors, to little public benefit."

"It may well do so. But it's quite painful enough to keep the people of Cheliax from theft and violent crime, and I am not sure we do them any great favors by outlawing behavior which many from civilized countries take no issue with."

"Consider; what then are the Causes leading to a Confused Bet regarding Lions, enriching some Bookmaker? The first is that they are Accustomed to a Government making use of Bloodsport in its Purported Justice; this we cannot Remedy more than has already been Done by said Government's Toppling. The second is that they expect Bloodsport used as a Sentence to Remain within the Available Discretion of the Court because they have not been Told Otherwise. As they come to see that a Judge is charged with Judging upon Law, which Law they have themselves Read, and as Bloodsport continues in Disuse, this will Fade; however they may Earlier be Told Otherwise; this we may do.

"I am not familiar with Abadar's teachings as regards Betting, but surely whatever He sees in it is not Lost with a Greater Body of Common Knowledge."

"The people of Cheliax have in my experience so far seemed reluctant to produce their true beliefs on anything except under the most exceptional and indirect circumstances. That one of these circumstances is betting that convicts will be devoured by lions is strange and unfortunate but if, as Ser Elkader suggests, it really is a way to elicit such statements, I would be reluctant to discard it without first replacing it." During assizes he sometimes resorted to asking people who wouldn't take his oath of anonymity to talk to his horse, who was more obviously unable to name them as accusers than he. She couldn't name names but could point him at people to question.

"The purpose of the gambling is to build the common knowledge; its spread is certainly to his benefit."

The thing about Lastwall and Osirion both, he doesn't say, is that they make sense. Everything you do is against the background of elaborate calculations of efficiency, and you can add your knowledge to that but it's there. It is the machinery of state, eternally ticking; plans and cost/benefit estimates and problem reports on the one side, betting odds on the other. The machinery still ticks.

Cheliax, meanwhile, wants to be Hell and is the Abyss.

Bellumar would also be in favor of bringing back convicts being devoured by lions but with this committee full of paladins the route to that is to get their man as Lord Mayor and then give him broad emergency powers. He will not attempt to argue for it here. 

"So, on the matter of whether judges are geased unwisely, we will endeavor to learn the details of the geas. The other matter I wanted to bring before this committee is regarding the many people detained by the crown for investigation after the riots. This is all to the good and I would not dream of impairing the crown in it. In fact they should do more of it. But the people fear arbitrary detention; that is, not just that they will be arrested if they are suspected of a crime, but that they will be arrested any time anyone feels like it. And so I had a proposal:"

Any free subject of Her Majesty may be detained at any time for the purpose of investigating a crime, and must cooperate with this detention. No free subject of Her Majesty shall be detained except on suspicion of a crime, and only while that suspicion is duly investigated. Nothing in this bill shall prohibit the conscription of men for the purposes of the army, nor the payment of taxes in the form of labor.

In the event that subjects are transported great distances in the course of their detention, and particularly if they are Teleported, the crown on releasing them must offer them the means for a safe return to the location they were detained from.

"I think I cannot support this proposal without time to think about whether it is good to forbid compelled witness testimony."

Hmm. He thinks Paladin Jomet has a point and will nod along.

"Is that not testimony for the purpose of investigating a crime, Chosen?"

Sensible in spirit, needs some serious amendment to be workable.

Proposing any amendment is slander.

"Perhaps it's an unclear wording issue. A witness who is not themselves a suspect could be detained for the investigation of a crime but not on suspicion of it."

"We can adjust the wording appropriately."

Any free subject of Her Majesty may be detained at any time for the purpose of investigating a crime, and must cooperate with this detention. No free subject of Her Majesty shall be detained except for the purpose of investigating a crime, and only while that crime is duly investigated or while their testimony as to a possible crime is required. Nothing in this bill shall prohibit the conscription of men for the purposes of the army, nor the payment of taxes in the form of labor.

In the event that subjects are transported great distances in the course of their detention, and particularly if they are Teleported, the crown on releasing them must offer them the means for a safe return to the location they were detained from.

That seems reasonable to him. He glances around the room at the other paladins in case there are obvious problems that he missed.

"I think this would also be awkward in cases where the crime, once judged, is punished with detention. I believe pamphleteers are at this moment serving thirty day sentences without being the subjects of ongoing investigation."

"Of course."

Any free subject of Her Majesty may be detained at any time for the purpose of investigating a crime, and must cooperate with this detention. No free subject of Her Majesty shall be detained except for the purpose of investigating a crime, and only while that crime is duly investigated, while their testimony as to a possible crime is required, or as punishment for a crime of which they have been duly convicted and sentenced to imprisonment. Nothing in this bill shall prohibit the conscription of men for the purposes of the army, nor the payment of taxes in the form of labor.

In the event that subjects are transported great distances in the course of their detention, and particularly if they are Teleported, the crown on releasing them must offer them the means for a safe return to the location they were detained from.

This, then, is Bellumar's trap, put forth a law he knows Lluïsa wants, from some informant or another, but poorly drafted, and charge her with slander when she gives a proposed amendment.

What to do?

"I would add—" she chokes. No, you can win this, you are objectively the Empire's foremost jurist, and he's just a radical Galtan.

"My apologies. I would add that a Kidnapper might find Refuge under this Law, it obliging Cooperation with any Detention which may be Twisted into Connection with a Crime, and moreover it may be Easy even if no Connection may be Contrived for said Kidnapper to fool the Unwary but Law-Abiding into such a Belief. My own drafting, though it be Hasty, would read rather:" She scribbles it out as she talks; it's based on earlier drafts she has in memory, altered to follow Bellumar's proposal.

1) Any Person Duly and Lawfully Charged with the Investigation of Crimes and the Enforcement of Law has the power to Detain, for a Limited Time, any free Subject of her Majesty solely for the Purpose of the Investigation of a Specific Crime, or multiple Specific Crimes.

1.a) Such Detention may continue only while such Crimes are Duly and Lawfully Investigated, unless the Detained be then Charged in which case it may continue until Trial, unless the Detained be then Sentenced to Imprisonment in which case it may continue for the Term of Imprisonment.

1.b) If such Detention has continued past a Reasonable Time for Investigation or Trial, and past any Sentence if such was made, the Crown shall Grant a Petition for the Release of the Detained.

2) Any Person Duly and Lawfully Charged with the Investigation of Crimes and the Enforcement of Law has the power to Detain, for a Limited Time, any free subject of her Majesty solely for the purpose of Compelling Testimony in connection with the Investigation of a Specific Crime, or multiple such Specific Crimes.

2.a) Such Detention may continue only while such Crimes are Duly and Lawfully Investigated, unless those Suspected of such Crimes be then Charged in which case it may continue until Trial.

2.b) Such Detention is not the Primary Means of Compelling Testimony, but rather is to be used when the Officers of the Law suspect the Witness may fail to Appear when Duly Summoned.

2.c) If such Detention has continued past a Reasonable Time for Investigation or Trial the Crown shall Grant a Petition for the Release of the Detained.

3) Should any Detention under this Law entail the Transportation of a Subject over a Great Distance, particularly if Teleported, the Crown shall upon their Release provide at its expense their Safe Return to the Location where they were Originally Detained.

4) Except under these Provisions the Crown and those Carrying Out her Majesty's Justice shall not Detain free subjects of her Majesty.

5) For the Avoidance of Doubt, Conscription and the Corvée are not forms of Detention under this Law.

"Have I then made any Obvious Mistakes, colleagues?"

She's sweating a bit, even though legalese is soothing.

"I can think of edge cases I'd want to have defined away if we were sure that the judges would always be subject to an extremely narrow Geas, but if we're not sure of that I would rather avoid making the laws too long and complicated."

"I also don't want to make the laws long and complicated, it'll scare the floor. But there's one bit here that seems too vague. It would seem improper for agents of the Crown to have the authority to declare they are 'conscripting' a citizen outside the ordinary processes of conscription in order to avoid being accused of improperly detaining them, and improper in a way this law intends to bar. Likewise with the corvée. Does a strategy occur to you to, without committing us to write all of the rules of conscription and the corvée on the spot, prevent the abuse of those as exceptions? Mine specified that conscription is for the army, not any occasion the Crown wants to demand labor, and the corvée in the place of coin taxation, in an attempt at that narrowing."

"It's now clearly limited to the Crown, at least, so I believe we're in no danger of accidentally abolishing apprenticeship contracts. I don't know that it's wise to attempt to forbid the Queen from using conscription for any circumstances other than the army, but perhaps we can limit conscription to those tasks which have been explicitly named by the Queen's written law."

How is this building Bellumar's slander case, and how can she thwart it here and now...

"Well noticed, Count Bellumar, Delegate Llovera, my thanks. Strike 'Conscription' and insert 'the Lawful Forms of Conscription', strike 'the Corvée' and insert 'the Lawful Fulfillment of Obligations of Taxation by the Corvée', perhaps."

"How about 'conscription or the corvée as authorized by a decree of the Queen or the convention, on the terms given in that authorization'."

"A fair Wording for the Moment though it may require future Amendment... but much of what we now Draft shall, it is the Early Days. I worry only that Necessary Conscription may exist under Forms the Queen or Convention have not yet reached... perhaps on the Border Marches, for instance. But I am a City Dweller and would hear from one Better-Versed."

"Is there in fact a process for amendment? I understood us to be forbidden from re-trying proposals, which I don't know must be interpreted as forbidding sending one through again amended but it might."

"I would expect that making adjustments to past proposals having seen how they work in practice is permitted. The archmage's justification for not allowing repeated votes was that it wasted time, but the fact we can amend in the future allows us to move more quickly."

"I understand the wording of the slander proposal to have been modified on the floor, and likewise understand further amendments to have been proposed and voted on unsuccessfully, though in both cases such amendments were made before a failed vote."

"There is a Remark by the President which is Vague and I [hope|had hoped] to Address this among other Procedures in the Committee on Forms[.|but now I am Unsure where and when it will be Addressed.] It seems clear that Inability to Amend would lead Rapidly into Contradictory, Nonsensical Law, however."

(note: resolve these ambiguities when the committee on forms thing is resolved!)

"Let's presume for now we are empowered to amend things, and I won't bring it to the floor if that turns out to be false."

"I think we may wish to specify the time that is called 'limited' or 'reasonable'. Shall we put it at seven days?" 

"I don't want to bind investigators' hands too much in a case like the riots, where thousands of crimes were committed and they are working long hours to get through all of them."

"As I understand the proposal, this would only require the investigators to charge them for crimes within seven days, not to have completed their investigations or hold the trial. I imagine the majority of people detained for participation in the riots have already been charged, even if only a few have been tried. If I am mistaken on that point, then I hope someone else will name a more reasonable time."

To Luisa: "Local defense is not normally provided for via long-term conscription, though I suppose it's sometimes necessary to direct the local peasantry to defend against an immediate attack. This does not seem very much like detention to me, but I admit I am not completely certain."

"Thank you, Archduke; it is a Military Matter rather than the Process of her Majesty's Justice and is not Intended to be Detention herein. For the purposes of such did I say 'Lawful Forms', and another Law to be drafted at a later Time may yet hang itself here as a Hat hangs on a Wooden Hat-Rack, permitting what is Necessary throughout."

"Duke Fraga, you are correct as I understand the Matter; to Charge is much less Ascertainment than to Try on Charges, and it is I believe the Time of Judges that is in most Short Supply."

"Then I would support the modification to add a seven day limit for charges, if it is the will of this committee."

"Can you re-read the new version of the proposal, after the changes?"

"It now Reads:"

1) Any Person Duly and Lawfully Charged with the Investigation of Crimes and the Enforcement of Law has the power to Detain, for a Limited Time, any free Subject of her Majesty solely for the Purpose of the Investigation of a Specific Crime, or multiple Specific Crimes.

1.a) Such Detention may continue only while such Crimes are Duly and Lawfully Investigated, unless the Detained be then Charged in which case it may continue until Trial, unless the Detained be then Sentenced to Imprisonment in which case it may continue for the Term of Imprisonment.

1.b) If such Detention has continued past a Reasonable Time for Investigation or Trial, and past any Sentence if such was made, the Crown shall Grant a Petition for the Release of the Detained.

2) Any Person Duly and Lawfully Charged with the Investigation of Crimes and the Enforcement of Law has the power to Detain, for a Limited Time, any free subject of her Majesty solely for the purpose of Compelling Testimony in connection with the Investigation of a Specific Crime, or multiple such Specific Crimes.

2.a) Such Detention may continue only while such Crimes are Duly and Lawfully Investigated, unless those Suspected of such Crimes be then Charged in which case it may continue until Trial.

2.b) Such Detention is not the Primary Means of Compelling Testimony, but rather is to be used when the Officers of the Law suspect the Witness may fail to Appear when Duly Summoned.

2.c) If such Detention has continued past a Reasonable Time for Investigation or Trial the Crown shall Grant a Petition for the Release of the Detained.

3) A Reasonable Time for Investigation shall be Seven Days; for Trial until the Date Fixed for Trial; and for Sentence of Imprisonment until the Expiration of said Sentence.

4) Should any Detention under this Law entail the Transportation of a Subject over a Great Distance, particularly if Teleported, the Crown shall upon their Release provide at its expense their Safe Return to the Location where they were Originally Detained.

5) Except under these Provisions the Crown and those Carrying Out her Majesty's Justice shall not Detain free subjects of her Majesty.

6, alternative 1) For the Avoidance of Doubt, the Lawful Forms of Conscription and the Lawful Fulfillment of Obligations of Taxation by the Corvée are not forms of Detention under this Law.

6, alternative 2) For the Avoidance of Doubt, the Lawful Forms of Conscription or the Corvée as Authorized by a Decree of the Queen or the Convention, on the terms given in that Authorization, are not forms of Detention under this Law.

"I note the following:"

"That the last Clause has two Drafts, and I would Choose that Alternative which is Agreeable to Archduke Narikopolus if none have additional Suggestions;"

"that perhaps a Reasonable Time for Trial Dates might be useful, though I hesitate to set one considering the Demands on the Time of Judges;"

"that the Second Draft of the last Clause says 'a Decree of the Queen or the Convention', and I believe it to be Decrees of the Queen which have force, and that she Enacts and Promulgates them as we Pass them."

He's really coming to dislike writing laws. Oh well. 

"I expect either alternative will work. The first seems to me to give more latitude for common sense, if someone does claim that another established but not formally decreed practice is technically a form of conscription, but perhaps the latter will give greater confidence in the law."

"For people who do not through their occupation have the power of arrest, conscription, or corvée, is this in any way not identical to a one-line law forbidding them to detain free subjects? I think laws being lengthier for people who do have those powers is fine, but the amount of helplessness I've seen about the law even when it was extremely short was troubling."

"Kidnap is elsewhere a Crime; this Draft creates two Powers granted to those charged with Enforcement of Law, and Abridges other Powers they previously had to carry out said Enforcement. The Effect of the Draft is Nil upon those who are not the Crown or otherwise carrying out her Majesty's Justice."

"You on Assize would have, and could Employ, those Powers, and Detain a free Subject. The ordinary Person lacking them cannot Employ them, and hence has no Occasion to abide by their Restrictions, and for him to Kidnap is a Crime."

"It is thus Drafted in order to achieve its Aims via the most Narrow means, that is, to Permit Arrest, an act which would be Kidnap without some Power under the Law permitting it, and Govern the Arrestor."

If you can't answer a yes or no question in a way that includes at least one of those words before or within your paragraphs then Elorri rather despairs of you writing something a random Chelish peasant will understand after having it explained six times, by a paladin, when they're not even in trouble. "Would you say that, then, the answer to my question, is 'no, it is for those persons identical'?"

"It is for those Persons identical to a Blank Sheet."

"Well, it means that if someone they love has been detained and not released or charged they should petition for their release after seven days, that's not nothing."

"That's true, thank you."

"Indeed so. It is Blank as to Additional Obligations on the People but provides them a Useful Remedy they might be Glad of."

"Delegate Goés raised this point already, but one trend I've noticed in modern Chelish law, compared to Arodenite law, is that modern law tends to be much longer. I don't think this is wholly a bad trend, and it may be unavoidable if we need to ensure there's no room for ambiguity, but I confess I find myself concerned that many people, particularly among the illiterate, will struggle to understand what this law actually does. Could we perhaps provide some sort of short, clear summary at the beginning of the law so that anyone can understand?"

Supportive nod.

Honestly it seems pretty restrained, probably because it was written over the course of ten minutes. 

"Hold a Moment, please." Time to employ advanced experimental drafting techniques honed in a year of doing nothing useful.

"It is a Narrow Law, and satisfies I believe all Desiderata yet Mentioned. To my colleagues of the Reclamation I note that no Burdens are imposed on the Public beyond those existing already in Laws criminalizing Kidnap and Resisting Lawful Arrest."

('Narrow' is about the highest praise possible when it comes to legal drafting, as befits her burgeoning egomania.)

"I think it will seem - trickier - to the floor than the version we started with, but if having consulted other lawyers it in fact does what we mean then it's acceptable to me. Does anyone have further thoughts before we vote?"

The suspicion of legal drafting is unfortunate but understandable given the state of the country, and maybe passing an unambiguously good law like this will help turn things around a bit. It's just a matter of surviving the coming days having called Bellumar's bluff.

"All right, let's hold the vote to bring this to the floor then. All in favor?"

"In favor."

"Aye."

"Aye."

"In favor."

"Aye."

"Aye."

This really seems like quite a rushed lawmaking process, but she supposes the need is fairly dire.

"Aye."

"Aye."

"Aye."

Well, all the paladins voted for it. "Aye."

"Excellent. Do any members have other matters for our consideration today?"

"I don't know if it's urgent enough to warrant the rest of today's time, but I would like to float the possibility of having some kind of protection for witnesses such that they will be less reluctant to come forward, even if they would be themselves implicated, or would make enemies among those they name."

"Do you have specific ideas in mind for how to implement that protection?"

"The spell that some of the delegates are using to conceal themselves might serve, but I don't know its limitations or whether it's normally available from casters other than the President's people. As a legal matter it would probably be straightforward to indemnify witnesses who provide essential testimony about a substantial crime against prosecution for any lesser offense they imply of themselves in the process."

"This presupposes an Ordering of Severity though one could perhaps be Formulated here. For clarity, do you mean to protect the Information itself, or to provide as a matter of Law some Immunity?"

"I meant the latter; I expect a typical witness to be unsatisfied with more limited measures and feel lied to if they were prosecuted due to another line of evidence, even though in principle that could be perfectly Lawful."

"I do worry about a rash of people committing crimes in the knowledge they can get immunity for them if they report a more severe one."

"If the report itself implicates them. I'd expect that to usually cover - accomplices, minions, cultists, blackmail victims - not opportunists, but if you have an example situation in mind of course I'd be willing to revise."

"I worry that it is Easy to Mislead even a Dutiful Subject who has read the Law as to the meaning of the Law, that having read the Law they will assume it a Trap, and no Investigation will thus be Aided, the Witnesses all refusing to Speak even promised Immunity. I would consider it an Incomplete Measure without first the Provision that any Immunity Offered must be True; then added to this your Proposal that Immunity must be Offered for Lesser Related Offenses."

If... they're not doing this already? Lluïsa is unclear on what happened with Victòria, but trust a lawyer as far as you can throw him (meaning a full-sized lawyer, not one as small and easily hurled into rivers as herself).

"- yes, true reports only, that was my oversight."

He nods to Goés. "A man might believe — correctly or not — that one of his neighbors was committing a severe crime, and take advantage of this law to break into his neighbor's house, steal his possessions, and incidentally gather evidence of this crime. If his suspicions were in fact correct, reporting the evidence he discovered would certainly implicate him, but I don't want to encourage people to steal from their neighbors, no matter what their neighbors have done."

"I think most civilized places give the judge discretion to have mercy on co-conspirators, particularly if they reported the crime, but do not oblige their non-prosecution, and that seems safer to me and less likely to inspire anyone to creative exploitation of the law."

"...True Offers of Immunity, not False Offers made as a Trick. Though you are correct that the Testimony being False must Invalidate," she clarifies to Goés.

"You have a point and I withdraw my proposal until such time as it can be amended to account for that neatly in a way readily comprehensible to the average citizen," Elorri says to Jonatan.

"With that matter withdrawn for further contemplation, I have another piece of business. One of the frequent complaints I received from the peasantry during my tour of Fraga is that the Chosen of Asmodeus could not be accused of wrongdoing, except to an ecclesiastical court, and none I asked had ever heard of such a court siding with a layperson against the Chosen, and as a result they were encouraged to misbehavior most severe. We have already had trials of clerics in the regular criminal courts, as is done in many countries around the world, and I propose we explicitly lay out this policy in the constitution, that the jurisdiction of Her Majesty's courts not be inferior to any private ones."

"The Principle is Sound. Though I would first consult with my Colleagues of the Committee on Virtuous Churches &c. as to what forms Ecclesiastical Courts might possibly take. But that the Sense of the Committee on the Judiciary is that the Courts of the Crown have Original Jurisdiction over all Crimes under her Majesty's Law, I would support; the Precise Legalities to be Later Determined."

"My understanding is that the purpose of ecclesiastical courts is essentially one of specialization. Paladins are under a set of very specific obligations, and have the vouchsafe of the gods in a respect no others do; there are things that they are prohibited from doing that we could never prohibit the ordinary citizens from doing, but also things they ought to be permitted to do because they can be trusted to do it. We may not have the means to reestablish the ecclesiastical courts yet but I certainly want them to exist eventually, and would not desire any clarification that might delay their swift establishment."

"I don't think the Crown has the power to establish an ecclesiastical court, merely to authorize and recognize it."

"I know little of the negotiations that produced the ecclesiastical courts of Taldor, only that they struck me as a beneficial institution."

Marit is not sure they should be modelling anything after Taldor's justice system, personally.

"Indeed, I do not mean to prevent private organizations from enforcing their own standards of discipline on their members. What I hope to prevent is Her Majesty's courts ceding their jurisdiction to those courts, and thus allowing them to run rampant. If being a paladin is a mitigating factor in the commission of a crime, either the law should have been written to exempt them, or a magistrate should be convinced of their argument."

"Of course being a paladin shouldn't be a mitigating factor in the commission of a crime. It might be a signifier of some other problem if you wind up with paladins committing crimes - the law might be unclear, or contradictory, or Evil - but it's not a mitigating factor."

"Is there anyone present who believes that Valia Wain would not be long dead, were she not a priest of Iomedae? To my mind there is absolutely no question, and every person I have spoken to in the city reached the same interpretation. It would have been utter madness for Her Majesty to order a priest of Iomedae convicted and executed while the Reclamation kept order in the city, and so it did not happen. Is there someone present who wishes to assure me the Church did not petition the Queen for mercy on her behalf?"

"I don't know whether the Church petitioned the Queen for mercy or not, but we wouldn't have stopped keeping order if she'd been convicted!" He sounds faintly horrified at the prospect.

"If the Church made such a Petition, or indeed took Any Action in respect of its Priest beyond Brief Conversation, I was certainly Not Informed," says the lawyer who would presumably have been informed unless it was some state secret.

Cheliax is terrible!

"And why would you have been informed? Ser Cansellarion is a personal friend of the Queen. They would have spoken, and certainly did!

I assure you, I am not implying that the Reclamation would under any circumstances fail to do their duty to our country and our queen. Nonetheless the fact of which army is occupying a city is relevant to a Queen when making decisions like her decision not to charge Wain on the treason charges she was uncontroversially guilty of.

No society executes a prominent priest of an allied Lawful Good god at the same provocation which inspires them to execute a random peasant girl. I am not complaining of this. I am simply observing that it is obviously true, and that everybody knows that it is true, and that this committee does not have the power either to make it false, or to convince people that it is false. And if we did convince them, we would be lying. Given that, it makes sense to have a judicial process which reflects reality, and not one which has to awkwardly contort itself around reality every time it faces it."

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."

"I acknowledge that this doesn't address your broader point, but in my experience many Chelish subjects are not aware that paladins are not permitted to lie, and do not believe it even having been informed. I don't know to what extent this applies to the convention."

"It probably doesn't help matters but I do not think it is the crucial point. I do not imagine any of you liars, I am just trying to explain to you what the delegates to this convention believe, and what will happen if you tell them something contrary to that but without sufficient justification to actually make them doubt it."

"To revert the sins of the Thrunes is hardly radical." They really did make the situation worse!

"I intended my proposal as a corrective."

"In that case I think we should debate what kind of corrective is best. We could correct the present situation by proposing that instead of the present situation, all clergy are tried in the ordinary courts - presumably excluding the Glorious Reclamation, which should continue doing court-martials of its own people. Or we could correct the present situation by proposing decent ecclesiastical courts. The latter makes more sense to me, especially since we are desperately short of priests right now and trying to attract them to the country."

"I believe the church of Abadar is better able to expand right now than we are and in countries where theirs is the principal ecclesiastical court we interface well."

"I'll speak to the Osirians about a suitable proposal and try to return with it tomorrow. Thank you all."