Triogenix Posted August 19, 2021 Posted August 19, 2021 (edited) Type (e.g. Planet, Faction, System): Legal Systems Describe this proposal in a single sentence (12 word maximum): Lore about how courts and prisons work in human factions. How will this be reflected on-station? It will mostly be reflected within security and antagonists, being able to threaten a certain prison, i.e. threatening to extradite a criminal back to Dominia unless they confess. It may also be used to create characters. Does this faction/etc do anything not achieved by what already exists? Yes-there’s very little on prisons and the legal systems of most of the human factions, beyond what’s on the Guide to law wikipage. This is written in an attempt to supplement what is already on that page in the most concise way possible. It also includes some new quirks for each faction. Why should this be given to lore developers rather than remain player created lore? For potential use in arcs, articles, and other lore created by the loredevs. Also possible use in backstories. Do you understand that if this is submitted, you are signing it away to the lore team, and that it's possible that it will change over time in ways that you may not forsee? Yep. Long Description: The Republic of Biesel: Courts: The republic’s justice system is a product of its reliance on megacorporations. It is known to be one of the most corrupt in the spur, with the SCC having a huge influence on rulings. It is not unknown for an aspiring union leader or anti-corporate protestor to be imprisoned for maximum sentences with little to no evidence of crime. Anti-corporate protesters will say the SCC is the reason for the stacking of Biesel’s supreme court, which currently has 57 Judges serving five year terms, and elected by the more influenceable Bieselian Congress. This corporate influenced justice system continues with how Biesel runs it’s criminal and civil courts. Instead of a jury system or single judge, Biesel operates with tribunals, meaning three judges will be presiding and deciding the fate of a criminal, while seven will preside and decide in civil courts. These numbers are true for all non-supreme courts, whether it be the the smallest district court on New Gibson, or the Biesel Planetary Court, which handles crimes that occur within the space around Biesel on top of being the second step of appeals for those on the planet Biesel. Prisons: Biesel prison system is, as of June 2463 entirely operated by SCC affiliates, with Zavodskoi Interstellar having the biggest presence housing 58% of all inmates within the system. Some have said this has led to extremely poor conditions within prisons, but multiple totally independent studies conducted by the Republic have stated this is not the case. However it cannot be denied that reoffense rates have gone up in tandem with corporate control over the penitentiary system. In addition, the Republic also has an agreement with the SCC affiliates to keep their population of inmates above 60% of the total capacity of the prisons. Biesel has the highest per-capita incarceration rate of the developed nations within the spur, with 1458 people incarcerated for every 100,000 living in the system. A majority of prisons on Biesel have their inmates working as nearly-free labor, with the average salary of a working inmate being 1.2 credits an hour. What the work is depends on the location of the prison, but menial labor is the most common, such as painting, tilling farm land, or mining are all common. Those working off the prison are normally implanted with tracking implants incase of an escape attempt, and are closely monitored by guards. The Circle: Originally constructed by the Solarian Government before the 2nd Economic Crash, the Circle resides on New Gibson, undeme r the control of Zavodskoi Interstellar. It is the definition of isolated, with the closest accommodation being some 37 kilometers away across New Gibsons surface. It is only accessible by shuttle, and it is the hoof 8971 inmates of all different species. The most common crime of the inmates is piracy, but it is also known to play host to a number of murderers, serial killers, and traitors. However, some say that the site is nothing more than a blacksite for those who corporations want to stay quiet, such as whistleblowers and others who vehemently oppose the control corporations have over the system, in which these people are slowly destroyed their minds through techniques such as starvation, extended solitary confinement, torture, and abuse. Several former inmates of the prison have launched civil suits following the establishment of the CRZ, alleging constant abuse from guards, torture for information, negligence resulting in death by freezing, and even execution of inmates. However within the month all suits were dismissed by the courts in which they were filed, and all appeal attempts failed. Zavodskoi has since stated that it will use, at the behest of the FIB and Biesel government, enhanced interrogation techniques in order to extract information critical to safeguarding the Republic at the site, but has declined to comment on what these techniques entail. The Solarian Alliance: Courts: Pre collapse, The Solarian Alliance justice system is archaic and a product of its bloated bureaucracy. The average time a charged person spent awaiting trial within the Solarian Alliance was 19 months and 28 days. However, the closer one was to the core of the Solarian alliance, the faster a court showing will be scheduled, and vice versa the farther from the core systems. Operating a Magistroral system, meaning that a single judge both presides over, sentences, and determines the guilt of the defendant, the Solarian Judiciary will hand out punishments as it sees fit, being almost completely separate and nearly untouchable by other elements of the Solarian State. The Solarian Supreme Court is staffed by 5 Magistrates who are voted into the position by their peers, and serve for life or until retirement. However, following the collapse the provisional government has suspended all future court dates, giving planets and agencies still loyal to Sol the ability to hold suspected criminals without trial for an intedermentant amount of time. However due to the backlog of trials, it is expected the judiciary will complete those already assigned sometime in the next two years. Prisons: Solarian Prisons are state owned enterprises, focused primarily on containing criminals until their sentence is complete. Conditions vary based on location, and security level, but in general most Solarian Prisons have mediocre conditions. The Navy also has a big hand in prison complexes, assisting in transport of detainees to the prisons, and supplementing guard forces at the more high risk prisons. This influence caused many people to assume it was the Navy who assisted former Prime Minister Frost in escaping both his Venus and Martian prison before being pardoned and taking the reins of ATLAS. Pre-violet dawn, a large number of prisons were located on Mars, with the detainees on the red planet making up somewhere around 20% of the total solarian prison population, in a multitude of different prisons. However, following violet dawn many of these detainees who were not transferred off-planet or killed in the fires were pardoned due to the extenuating circumstances, or escaped, with a majority of the pardons being those who were within a year of being released and now reside in the northern parts of the planet. However this has backfired on the newly former military government, as many of these criminals formed gangs in their new home, and constantly steal water supplies, distribute narcotics, and generally be a thorn in the side of the military government. Solarian Code of Military Justice: The Solarian Code of Military Justice, or SCMJ, is theoretically the highest code of law all members of the Solarian Alliance Military are subject to. However, the enforcement of it is normally left up to a unit's officers, with major being the lowest rank able to chair a trial, which leads to many officers deciding whether or not to conduct a trial to decide purely off their own whims and desires. It is not unknown for criminal activity to be ignored within a fleet if the perpetrator is well liked by their officers, or if officers believe whatever occurred was not of much importance. This in the past, has included ignoring what the Luna Convention would define as war crimes. The Empire of Dominia: Courts: The Empire of Dominia’s courts are split into two distinct Categories. There is His Imperial Majesty's Judiciary, operating on a magistrate system, and the Courts of the Holy Goddess. His Imperial Majesty’s Judiciary, normally shortened to the Imperial Judiciary, is a set of judges appointed by the Emperor to enforce his laws across the empire. Due to this selection process, Magistrates of the Imperial Judiciary are loyal to none besides the Emperor, and are generally from Noble Lineages. They are known to be extremely harsh on Ma’zals and Secondaries, often handing down prison sentences that may be double of a nobles who committed the same offense, as well as almost always signing arrest and search warrants based on “Suspected of Synthetic Infiltration”, especially if the target of the warrant is a political enemy of the Emperor. The supreme Imperial court is the Emperor himself, to whom all Dominian citizens may appeal to. While the Imperial Judiciary handles a vast majority of criminal activity within the empire, the Courts of the Holy Goddess fulfill an equally important role within Dominion society, but do so with far more power. The Courts of the Holy Goddess, made of clergy members of Priest or higher within the Holy Tribunal, hold the absolute power of life and death over Dominian citizens, being the only institution within the nation to be able to legally execute an organic. Warrants are not required by Keepers of Saviors to drag those officially registered to members of the Tribunal(all Dominian Citizens) before the court, as long as they are within Dominian space. This being said, compared to the Imperial Judiciary the Courts of the Holy Goddess are rather forgiving, normally giving a guilty party the chance to repent in the eyes of the Church, and keep their head. The notable exception to this rule are Nul’ahks, who if found outside Dominian space and extradited back, will almost universally be executed after some time, normally after an “interrogation”(read: tortured) is conducted to determine their activities since they left Dominian space. State Prison: Dominia’s Prisons have, without a doubt, the worst conditions of any established interstellar nation within the spur. Lack of adequate living supplies such as food and water, cramped spaces, disease, lack of medical care, and an abusive guard force make going to prison in Dominia a near death sentence. Criminal Nobles will normally attempt to have family pay to improve their conditions, if it can be afforded, but a rival noble house can always pay more to ensure regular beatings or an accidental death during an escape attempt. For those from the Imperial Province of Fishandu, they will meet a fate worse than any other. Guards take a seemingly particular pleasure in torturing those from Fishandu, whether 3F or not. Including forced marches through the Moroz snow without proper clothing, waterboarding, forced into stress positions for days on end, and many other horrible methods that break down and eventually kill the detainee. No guard or prison officer has ever been arrested or investigated for these incidents. There is even rumor of unknown men spiriting away detainees, with some claiming to have seen the markings of Zavodskoi Interstellar on these men. Her Holy Sites of Repentance: Operating as the Tribunals holding area for those undergoing repentance and requiring a more assisted regiment. Very few inmates will reside in these centers for more than a year, and there are currently only four sites in existence. Repenters will pray every day at scheduled times, read holy scripture provided to them on a personal basis by Priests, and watched over Day and Night by Keepers. Failing to abide by the requirements of the site will result in Corporal Punishment, normally lashings. Conditions are good at these sites, with repenters being well cared for by the church. The Coalition of Colonies: Courts: Due to the disparate nature of the Coalition, and emphasis on Planetary governments being able to handle their own affairs, the Coalition only has one real court. Named after a former Coalition Admiral during the Interstellar War, the Bacui Court deals in sentencing multisystem criminals, such as pirates found within Coalition space. They work closely with the Coalition Rangers, who are tasked with escorting accused criminals to the nearest court, which can sometimes take weeks. That is-if the rangers decide to take the accused to court. Frontier Justice: Within the Coalition there is an informal understanding when it comes to the enforcement of laws, it’s up to the enforcement agent there, whatever their title, to decide what to do about a criminal. It is not unknown for those accused of, or believed to have committed, murder, piracy, or other high crimes to never see trial beyond checking how long a human can last in the vacuum of space, or what effects bullets have on the brain as they tear through it. This style of justice is generally accepted by those living on more rural worlds, while others living on more Urban Worlds such as Xanu Prime roar about how it feeds corruption within Law Enforcement, and kills possible innocents. Prisons: The Central Coalition government operates two prisons, both within the Xanu system space, and hold a total of 14,573 inmates all of whom were convicted of major felonies across multiple systems. The guard forces are-by law, composed of members from all coalition planets with a population of 5 million. The Serene Republic of Elyra:(due currently being reworked, this will be rather simple, I may edit it after the rework comes out) Courts: The courts of the Republic of Elyra function similarly to the courts of Sol, with the major difference being instead of the Magistrate determining guilt, guilt is determined by a Jury of 9 randomly selected citizens, with a majority vote deciding. However, like Sol, the Republic believes in Capital Punishment for those found guilty of Major crimes, despite being a signatory of the Luna Convention. Elyra on average executes 103 people a year. Prisons: Elyran Prisons tend to focus on ideas of reform, attempting to assist those who commit crimes to forge a better life path for themselves. This has been rather successful, and as a whole the Elyran Prison system has only a 13% readmittance rate. Due to the aforementioned focus on reform, the condition in Elyrian Prisons is most likely the best in the spur for human nations. The Eridani Corporate Federation: Courts: While on paper they have the same court system as the rest of the Solarian Alliance, due to the lack of a requirement for megacorporations to follow laws while in Eridani space, this system is never used, and there are zero Magistrates for the Eridani system. Instead each corporation has their own set of court-like systems, with all having an accused's direct superior as the judge. Due to the aforementioned lack of requirement to follow laws, they are even able to execute people, however corporations have stringent rules in place to prevent false charges being stated as true from happening at random to employees. Prisons: Eridani space houses no proper prisons, but instead work camps where those found guilty by their superiors can work off the debt they now owe to the company for whatever damages after being fired. The type of work depends on the planet within the Federation the camp is located on. The conditions in these work camps are barely tolerable, with just enough done to ensure that corporations have a chance of reclaiming the debt owed to them. Einstien Engines and Zeng-hu both constantly trade for the most amount of debtors in these camps, with both companies holding around 30% of the total inmates, with Hephaestus Industries holding another 20%, and Eagle Corp coming in last overseeing 18% of all inmates, at the behest of all three megacorporations. Edited August 19, 2021 by Triogenix
NewOriginalSchwann Posted October 9, 2021 Posted October 9, 2021 Accepted pending edits and cuts to its content. We're planning to add lore related to courts, law enforcement, and prisons over the upcoming months and parts of this will be used in it. Thank you for your submission.
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