law

Multiple Jeopardy

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AIÖ (IMPERIAL CORE) — The Watch Constabulary announced today the capture of more instances of Werg yilKorin hinAnkar, estrev and sole member of the Shrouded Suns Selfdom, a criminal syndicate based out of the Sivrin Freeworlds, notorious for their ventures in blacknet operations, infojacking, reputation gaming, identity fraud, loansharking, forknapping, brainspiking, genetheft, semislavery and sophont trafficking.

The three captured instances, Werg.1032, Werg.1033, and Werg.1120 were executed upon verification of identity, under the sentence of death passed against their lineal fork-ancestor, Werg.37, in 4982.  At the present time, the Constabulary estimates that 383 instances of yilKorin remain at large.

One Law For All

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“Understand this: we have only one crime in the Empire.  That crime is choice-theft.

“Underlying every principle of our law, more fundamental even than the Contract and the Charter, is jírileth – the principle of liberty.  The principle that all sophonts, all with reason and will, should be afforded the greatest possible scope within which to act in accordance with their qalasír, so long as by doing so they do not impair the scope of another so to act.  Thus, the nature of all crime is to deprive one’s fellow soph of some portion of his scope of will.

“Of course, there are eighty enumerated charges defined by the Convention and later law, not simply one charge with myriad variations, but you should understand that these exist merely for administrative convenience.  Examine the five divisions, beginning with the three major:

“To kill, injure, constrain or coerce someone directly is an obvious impairment of their will; these are the crimes against the person, and they are all types of choice-theft.

“To steal, destroy, damage, trespass or meddle is to deprive a person of the full use of their property, and in turn – since all one’s goods, tangible or intangible, agent or chattel, serve as tools by which one may expand the scope of one’s will, and wealth most of all – to deprive them of the full range of choices which they might make, again impairing their will; these are the crimes against property, and they, too, are all types of choice-theft.

“To default, defraud, defame, counterfeit, or deceive is to deprive a person of obligation or truth, those contracts upon which they might rely in choosing their future course, and that knowledge which they need to make valid choices, which again both broaden the scope of the will, which is in turn impaired by breaches and lies; these are the crimes against contract, and they once again are all types of choice-theft.

“And finally, the minor orders, the crimes against the Charter and against order, which concern themselves with violations of the obligations which citizen-shareholders take upon themselves upon signing the Imperial Charter, whether directly, in the former case, or where the Empire’s management of public volumes and utilities is concerned, in the latter.  These are no more than special cases of crimes against property or contract, and so, like those, are all types of choice-theft.

“On this all else is based.  You will study all of the enumerated charges and their combinations and variants in your time here, and you will go on to address many of them in your future careers, but you should never forget this simple truth.  Despite the complexities of one precedent chain or another, of one set of specialized rules attached to a particular implementation of a particular extended charge, or of any particular case, ultimately, the Curia and its courts care about two simple questions:

“Was there an intent to remove someone’s choices?

“Whose choices were removed, and to what extent?

“Address yourself to these two, simple, fundamental questions rather than the technicalities, nail those answers down, and speak them clearly, and you will prosper in the profession.  Thank you.”

– Ephor Valarian Elarios-ith-Elarios. matriculation address at the Bar Iseléne Academy of Principle

Timey-Wimey Law

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“The Academy of Relativistics and Temporal Mechanics proposed that relevant precedents from cases yet to be tried should be admissible in court. After consultation with the emissary incarnation of Esseldár, the Curia ruled by vote of three to two that the principle of local causality should be enforceable at law unless effects whose causes themselves lay in the future should be the subject of the suit.”

– Proceedings of the 42nd Great Clarification

Pacta Sunt Servanda

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el claith ul covalár an-el feämar duolor rrilmirímúl sá ulessár: (“a contract not possessing the quality of legality does not unmake itself”).  The legal principle that a contract to perform an illegal act is not thereby voided, established in Morat Allatrian-ith-Alclair v. Vinath Sargas-ith-Sarathos, Ethring District Court (13).  The court ruled that the contract was not void on the grounds that the illegality of the act (a murder for hire) to be committed by Citizen Sargas-ith-Sarathos could nevertheless not impair either party’s capacity to contract for its performance, further noting that to treat the contract as void in itself would impair the prosecution of Citizen Allatrian-ith-Alclair for the murder (under the doctrine of el daráv valté eloé cófé-sa mahíré, “a sophont is equivalent to all his associated tools”).  Thus, the court determined, Citizen Allatrian-ith-Alclair could file suit against Citizen Sargas-ith-Sarathos for non-performance of contract, but that in the case of such a contract the remedy of specific performance would not be available, no court having the power to order a criminal act under Imperial law, and that any material remedy awarded would be considered forfeit as inherently the causal proceeds of engagement in crime, likewise.

The decision in Morat Allatrian-ith-Alclair v. Vinath Sargas-ith-Sarathos has had little impact on Imperial domestic law, since the restrictions on remedies possible have provided little incentive for those contracting the performance of crime to file suit for non-performance, especially since to do so in cases where the crime in question has not yet come to the attention of the Ministry of Harmonious Serenity would be to provide them with a prima facie confession.  It has, however, had some impact in cross-jurisdictional cases where the contractee is required to perform an act illegal in their jurisdiction of domicile or citizenship, or the jurisdiction in which the act is to be performed, but where the act in question is legal under Imperial law.

– Salvarin’s Dictionary of Legal Principles

In Time of Emergency, The Rules Suspend The Rules

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Under section 31(c) of the Imperial Emergency Management Act (Revised), 4111, in fulfillment of the Charter mandate to promote the common and mutual defense of civilization from cataclysms of nature, and exercising by herein-authorized proxy the Responsibility of Eminent Domain;

When a Class II or higher emergency has been declared by the Imperial Emergency Management Authority, or when an emergency is in progress and the Emergency Communications System is off-line;

And in the absence of duly Mandate-authorized authority, including all officers of the Ministry of Harmonic Observance;

In such situations as it shall be necessary to prevent further harm to life or property, or to perform essential works of infrastructure reconstruction, citizen-shareholders shall be authorized to enter unattended commercial (retail or storage) property, containing construction materials or repair supplies, within the zone of the Emergency in an orderly manner, and appropriate therefrom such goods as are necessary for the prevention of harm or performance of essential works, as stated.  Such appropriations shall be recorded at the site from which they were made, and the owners of said property may claim due recompense at the market price for such appropriations from the Imperial Emergency Management Authority.

Citizen-shareholders are reminded that the appropriation of any goods not required to prevent harm to life or property or to perform essential works of infrastructure reconstruction, to fail to properly record all such appropriations, or to cause any unnecessary property damage, or to leave property vulnerable to further damage, in the course of such appropriation is forbidden under section 31(c) of the aforementioned Act, and shall constitute the crime of looting.  In times of Class II or higher emergency, looters are considered enemies of the public safety, and are to be shot on sight; citizen-shareholders are further reminded that the law enforcement duty is the responsibility of every citizen-shareholder, especially in emergency situations.

It should also be noted that the privilege of appropriation conferred by section 31(c) is intended to cover emergencies of unusual duration, and that the responsible citizen-shareholder should not consider it a substitute for individual crisis readiness, as delineated on pp. 432-440.  Remember, a prepared Empire is a safe Empire!

– Codex of Civic Services and Citizen Responsibilities, 117th edition

Saravoné’s Code

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This is the Code of Saravoné,
the Just One, the Scale-Bearer,
by whom all Law is upheld.

To live is to exist
to possess
to act.
All that lives shares this wellspring:
existence, property, will; a single threefold truth.
All crime transgresses against this truth;
by using another for one’s own ends.
Murder, theft, slaving; the three Darknesses.
All are the same.

One alone may stand alone;
the many depend on each other.
A branch, a city, a House, a land, a world
Stands upon myriad pledges.
The obligations of Tárvalén are sacred;
to violate them is to violate the will.

All that lives and thinks.
All that reasons and knows itself.
All possess these things.

An attack on one is an attack on all;
an attack on all is an attack on each.
To defend another is to defend yourself;
when all are defended, justice is done.

The Law is eternal, the person is not;
to live forever is not to exist in eternity.
To trade the eternal for the ephemeral
is to sacrifice a greater thing for a lesser.
This trade has no worth.

Therefore act with coldness of mind.
Hatred and vengeance;
love and clemency;
anger and destruction;
compassion and forgiveness;
these do not serve the Law.

Can you restore the dead to life?
Remake the shattered oath?
Restore ash to unburnt wholeness?

All things have their balance.
All obligations must be met.
All debts must be paid.
This is the rule of mélith.

This is the Code of Saravoné,
the Just One, the Scale-Bearer,
by whom all Law is upheld.

National Branding

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Have there been any existing cases or situations (dear lazyweb), of branding or trademark issues where the names of nations or cities are concerned? (Apart from all the obvious ones we ignore, that is.)

I was thinking of this recently with regard to all those cities, and planets, of course, in SF, called New Something.. If J Random Interstellar Colony, set up by some private group, decides to call itself New America, does this current America have any recourse? Especially if it’s an ideologically unfortunate colony, or it had plans to use – or is using – the name itself?

And while it wasn’t a problem when they named New York (or indeed New Amsterdam) after those original cities, or indeed with our forty-odd Springfields, or a source of tension between Kansas City and Kansas City – or to pick a more separated example, Portland and Portland, if someone were today – or in a few hundred years time on another planet – to open a second New York and start touting for financial and commercial business, might the first one have a perfectly reasonable argument that this does constitute “passing off” in the legal sense?

I’m fairly certain there are lots of places in the Eldraeverse with a ™ in their name for this sort of reason, but I’m curious to know if it has any analogs in actuality.