"These are all about how you can punish people for breaking the law, right, not about every way anyone could possibly hurt other people? Could we just say, I'm not sure how you'd phrase it, but could you just say that these are the punishments that judges are allowed to give anyone for breaking the law? And it wouldn't ban fighting bandits or monsters or undead, since that's not illegal, but randomly grabbing someone off the street and torturing them to death would still be covered. And then if Liushna or someone from Molthune or... a baby, for some reason... gets put on trial, it'd be the same either way. —It doesn't handle the slave situation super well but it could help in situations where a slave actually gets a trial, rather than their owner just deciding to hurt them."

“I don’t think it makes any sense to put babies on trial? Even if it’s just from the lastwall list, that’s…”

"I heard a rumor. Don't know if it was true. The baby wasn't on trial, hurting it was some adult's sentence."

"What the fuck!!!! —I was going to say, I don't think we should put babies on trial either, but... wow. What the fuck." She doesn't like the Lastwall list but at least it would stop that.

“Haven’t heard that one before, but I believe it.”

Oh her fucking god. What do you even SAY to that.

"So do I. Many nobles competed to be... creative."

All citizens of Cheliax have the right, if convicted of a crime, to be punished only by means which are no more torturous than necessary for public safety and public order.
Therefore, no judge may assign to anyone any sentence not permitted by Iomedae's nation of Lastwall at the time of adoption of this right, unless that sentence is added to the list of those punishments permitted, through confirmation from the Church of Iomedae in consultation with the Crown. The convicted may accept other punishments if the court offers one and the criminal prefers it.
This right shall take effect with the adoption of the constitution, and the convention and Queen will, before that time, specifically seek out consultation with the Church for the punishments of lashing with a scourge rather than horsewhip, imprisonment, beheading, and the Final Blade, to confirm the proper methods by which these traditional punishments may be permitted.
The civilian punishments permitted by their present use in Lastwall are long-drop hanging, permanent exile from Cheliax, maiming, sentences to hard labor for a specified term which may be year-round or exclude the harvest and planting season, fines and confiscation of property (with appropriate methods of seizure), and whipping. Military punishments include being stripped of rank, punishing an entire unit for the crimes of a single member, and being consigned to a penal battalion.

Now, the trick is, she doesn't want to acknowledge the sleight of hand she's written here, which is entirely to try to avoid attention to 'citizen' vs. 'anyone'.

"I think you're right, Victòria, that it's simpler to say what judges can and cannot do, but I do want to play strictly by the rules and pass rights, not laws, as much as possible, so I've phrased it to make that clear." Because certain other committees aren't and she intends to protest that. "I've also added the list of permitted sentences, and I'm leaving off terms of parole because it's as much a rule of judicial procedure as a punishment and also we were advised it might not even be a good idea at the moment."

"- Iomedae is having a difficult time at the moment. You might want a fallback in case that situation deteriorates instead of recovering. Whichever of the Shelynites or Sarenrites is better established and trusted here would probably be fine. Or the Erastilians if they wish to concern themselves but I think possibly Cheliax is too urban for that to be the Sowers' comparative advantage."

"I'm here, aren't I? But I'd rather not be, if that's what you mean."

Blink blink.

The first part looks the same, except she definitely saw Delegate Bainilus change part of it, and she wouldn't have done that for no reason, so she's clearly missing something.

She reads it again.

—That kind of feels like Asmodean trickery? But she does want to make sure the good parts of the rules still apply to people like Liushna, so... maybe it's an okay kind of Asmodean trickery?

"The wording on the first part looks fine to me. If we're trying to pick another god to put in, I like Shelyn better than Sarenrae. ...And I've seen multiple Shelynites here but I haven't seen any Sarenrites, so it might be easier to find Shelynites.

And I don't think it should be allowed to punish soldiers for things that totally different soldiers did, I didn't realize the paladin was saying that was allowed. Can we leave that part out?"

"That's because they're supposed to keep each other honest, not wink while their buddy goes and ruins some girl's life."

Enric nods at that. “Wish that part was for the city watch too, from what I’ve heard here.”

"Oh. ...That makes sense but I think I'd rather just have a separate law against covering it up when other soldiers are doing that sort of thing, if a soldier wasn't doing anything wrong it's not fair to punish him for what other soldiers did."

"I think also it's useful for military discipline but not having ever encountered an actually disciplined military force in my career I'd defer to Archduke Requena, who has commanded them. Xavier, could you explain?"

"Certainly." He turns to her. "The men in a file* need to trust each other, closer than brothers. They sleep in the same tent, eat from the same pot, train on the same field, drink from the same bottle; when five are tired the sixth brings water. There are no secrets there. They are rewarded collectively for success and punished collectively for disgraceful behavior, and this builds a file that trusts each other, one that won't run when battle comes because no man will disgrace himself in front of his comrades. It yields men who will stand above a dying comrade's body because he would do the same for him, and that is an army that wins wars against all the might of Hell, and collective punishments are done because of this.

"And it is also done because it yields men who will lie, to their officers' faces, whenever it would risk another men of the file. A man cannot commit a crime without his brothers knowing unless they are very, very careful not to know and a file would no more surrender his brother to the officers than to the enemy, whatever his brother's crimes, and so they are punished together when one man commits a serious crime, because each and every one of them knew or could easily have known - and as a result of this they are very reluctant to commit serious crimes, because it risks those who depend on them just as much as it risks them, and even many evil men still love their friends enough to refrain from evil for their sakes."

(*: The term is fossilized in modern Taldane, coming from a period where the unit referred to a sixteen-strong line of pikemen.)

Nod. "If it'd be that hard for a soldier not to notice one of the other soldiers was up to something, punishing them all makes sense. I didn't realize armies worked like that."

The part about being able to get soldiers not to hurt innocent people by threatening their friends feels surprising, but now that she thinks about it maybe it shouldn't be? She's been trying to avoid doing crimes just because it would make Valia sad if she got caught. Probably if Valia would actually be punished for them, she'd try even harder. She's not Evil, so it's not totally applicable, and it's kind of weird to think about the sort of person who'll do the kinds of terrible things that got brought up on the floor this morning but isn't willing to hurt their friends, but probably there's some people like that.

Maybe she's just not used to the idea of having friends at all, and that's why it feels surprising to think about.

"It's desirable for enlisted men to lie to their officers to protect their unit? ...That's not actually important. Does this allow military punishments for civilians?"

"I don't believe it does; it's not supposed to."

"It's not desirable, but if you want an army better than Asmodeus's it is inevitable. If your men will die for each other, they'll lie for each other."

Dying for someone who hasn't done awful things and covering it up if they do do awful things really seem pretty different, but it's not like she's ever been in an army.

"Ah, I see; I was merely confused by your phrasing. It makes sense that that is so. I'm in favor of this as written."

"We do need to pick a backup church, if it's dire enough that not even experienced lay priests are going to stay available to the Queen's central government. I'm inclined to let Her Majesty pick 'an organized Good church' if Iomedae's turns down her request. Ser Jornet, anyone else, objections or clarifications?"

"Organized and Good seem like the appropriate and sufficient critiera."

And she thinks that Iomedae is under such strain that they can't guarantee the Queen will have reliable non-immediate access to an experienced lay priest. Gods of Good, what is happening in Lastwall?

Well, the Queen is Good, so probably she'll pick one of the relatively decent gods.