"If a bailiff served in their role for ten years, by replacing them all we are asking the crown to make ten years of appointments at once, with all the usual sources for recruitment shuttered. The law schools are not creating judges; the noble families that once infested Egorian and supplied many of the minor bureaucrats have been cast down. Remember that the crown must find magistrates as well, and those are a much higher priority, and even after a year we are not at a tenth of the number that the Thrunes employed. I do not see a way out of this besides making use of local recruitment and local judgment."

"I would rely on imports, rather than local recruitment. But I certainly think we can't wait on the Crown."

He nods to Ser Elkader. "If we must rely on local appointments, it might be a good idea to initially grant the power to make appointments only to nobles of count rank or higher, all of whom have at least been vetted, and to those of their vassals whom they specifically empower to make said appointments." 

Besides, higher rank tends to be associated with greater virtue, though perhaps that's less applicable when half the counts in Longmarch are foreign commoners by birth and almost none of the archdukes were brought up to handle the responsibility of such a position.

"Hmm, I suppose there will be less arguments over who gets to make the appointment if it's done by the counts since a bailiwick is more likely to fall inside a single county than a single barony. Add in the increased vetting of counts, and you've convinced me they should make the appointments.

That leaves the appeals courts, the urban courts, and the permanent assizes. I'm afraid I have little direct expertise with any of them, but I am happy to share what I have gathered so far, or for the chair to close out this section with a vote and bring us to a different part of the agenda."

"I think we should give Delegate Oriol some days to draft the actual law before we vote on it, but I suppose we can hold a vote on the broad concept of provisional bailiffs, appointed by counts and up, so the paladins can vet if they are making accurate and merciful decisions and they can replace the Reclamation once they are. Since there's no point in drafting the law if we don't agree it's a good law we'll recommend to the floor. So - nonbinding vote on whether you think you'd support this if it's well-drafted?"

"Aye."

"Aye."

"Aye."

"Aye, with regards to the broad details."

"Aye."

"No," he's really skeptical about this.

Nod. "Aye."

Naturally she's voting for herself drafting things.

What a stupid idea. "Aye."

He's still not convinced that there's anything fundamentally wrong with crown appointments when the crown isn't evil, but the crown isn't appointing people and he doesn't really want it to start doing so in Menador. "Aye."

"All right. Then we can perhaps convene tomorrow to consider Delegate Oriol's draft. Does anyone else have business to put before this committee today?"

"Before she drafts it, I had a minor suggestion. Based on my experiences on assize, I think the draft should explicitly permit the Queen to revoke the right of any given noble to appoint bailiffs — I realize that this would almost certainly be permitted regardless, but I suspect the wording of any of this committee's proposals will be scrutinized carefully going forward."

"That sounds perfectly sensible." In Taldor the imperial court has that power. It just means you need to pay them a fee when you inherit and probably also if you ever cause some kind of mess that reaches their notice, which is a very good system.

"A natural enough Clause," she agrees.

Ser Nerius may appreciate the value of uniform standards of Law, or perhaps he just mistrusts the lower nobility. Either way, it saves Valenti the trouble of proposing it on the floor.

"Very sensible, Marit."