Laws of Listeneisse

Listeneisse > Laws of Listeneisse

The Kingdom's legal code is comprised of the following constituent elements:

UN Resolutions

These are laws passed by the UN, which as a member nation, Listeneisse is bound to comply with.

International Treaties

Laws wherein the King, or those allowed to sign in his name, make agreements with other nations. Included in this would be the provisional Charter (and government) of the Warzone of the Defenders.

The Regal Codex: A Compendium of Royal Decrees, Writs, Acts and Proclamations

Sometimes called "the Rex Codex." Statements and rulings by the current King and all his predecessors comprise the formal legal code of Listeneisse. The King has the right to change all laws within the Kingdom of Listeneisse. He does not need any parliamentary approval or review. Over nearly millennia of history these have become a huge series of often arcane and sometimes conflicting rulings.

They are often based on specific cases, which serve as the basis of judicial debate. Many try to take precedental rulings to apply broadly. Others try to narrow the definitions and meanings of prior rulings of sovereigns.

Laws are often prepared by the Ministers and submitted to the King. Others can be submitted by anyone, from Parliamentarians to favored aristocrats or even commoners. Such a person is known as the "Sponsor" of the proposal. Sponsored laws are often seen as lower in precedence than laws that came directly from the King himself.

The King has an office of people under the Lord Chancellor who review the vast amounts of submitted ideas for him. They know his tastes, but sometimes surprise him with issues that cannot be dismissed, or may be a novel approach to a problem not considered before.

The King must sign any proposal or draft for it to become a formal law of the land. However, he also can grant right of the Royal Seal to certain members of government to sign laws on his behalf. It is usually only done once he has at least heard an overview of the proposal.

Some laws are also passed provisionally or temporarily, putting limitations of application, and often allowing time for public review or appeal before their general enactment. Decrees can also expire or be renewed, as the King desires. There is a great deal of difference between perpetual and temporary rulings.

Provincial Codices

Because the Kingdom absorbed other nations with their own kings, parliaments and laws, a tremendous amount of interest and effort is ongoing to streamline the Regal Codex with other royallaws of sub-kings, and civil parliamentary law across the nation's provinces. The sub-kings all agreed to infeudate themselves to the King, and the parliaments voted to join in union with the Kingdom, so all agreed to use Royal law over their own where it conflicted. In many cases the provincial monarchs and parliaments are cooperating to ensure a standard common law across all jurisdictions. In some situations a local law is preferred. It does lead to some confusion and problems. There is talk about creating a set body of common law, but so far it has proven difficult.

Noble Demesne Law Codes and Cases

Like the King, individual nobles can have their own code of provincial or local laws and precedents. Sub-kings, princes, dukes, earls, counts, barons, other entitled nobles, and even certain bishops or knights, may all have land in demesne. But there also needs to be a right of sake, which grants them the right to hold court over their demesne. Some nobles are granted titles without the rights of sake. Such nobles can hold court for social and political reasons, but not pass legally-binding rulings. Rights of sake can also be removed by the King for failure to provide protection under the law for their subjects, or for gross violation of the King's law.

Provincial Parliamentary Law

Each of the provinces can hold its own parliament. Those provinces that were added that already had their own could keep them mostly intact. Those provinces that did not have them needed to institute them. In provincial governments, the people have the right to pass civil laws to govern their day-to-day business so long as they do not contradict royal law. It varies from case-to-case whether local nobles have greater rights than the provincial parliament. In most cases the precedent is still in favor of the noble, but the trend is towards parliamentary government. In cases of conflict, parties may bring their case before Royal Justicars.

Local District Legislation

Each of the provinces are also broken into smaller shires or other local districts which may have democratically-elected legislatures to pass laws. They too might be held in greater or less precedence than noble demesne laws of their area. It should be noted many of the French-speaking districts are purely democratic, and even ideologically socialist. The King has no interest in removing their chosen from of local organization so long as it conforms with all Royal laws.

Municipal Law

Cities and towns enjoying a Royal Charter have the right to hold their own local laws. However, many locations, even some rather large cities (like Galafort), are in the private demesne of a noble (i.e., the Duke of Galafort). Such unchartered municipalities are governed by the rulings of the noble.

Chartered municipalities are run by executive mayors and legislative councils, as the people of the city wish (some have one and not the other; most have both). Some of the mayoral positions also hold related noble titles, styled as "Lord Mayor," allowing them to rule the city much as if it was a private demesne of an aristocratic lord. However, Mayors are elected positions. While a Mayor can pass on their duties to a successor (such as if they retire or die), they cannot outrightly bequeath the position; it is not hereditary nor even inherently their own position to bestow. The people get to elect their new Lord Mayor as their rules of election and replacement dicate.

Castle Carbonek is the largest city in the Kingdom. It has a very powerful Lord Mayor and City Council, rivalling most of the provinces in terms of its own population and economy. While technically the city is in the Royal demesne of the King, it generally conducts its own business independently.

Knight's Duties

Knights are given special legal status to make rulings of law, though they cannot pass their own laws. They may choose to legal enforce the King's law or their feudal superior's law as per their judgement, to champion causes by undertaking martial challenges to duel, or to make noble appeals on the behalf of others. They act as royal agents, empowered to uphold justice in cases as they see fit, even if that means killing someone. However, the knight is supposed to obey the law in all that they do. Abuses by knights can earn them sanction or degredation of their rank and status, as well as arrest and severe criminal penalties including execution if they are found in violation of the law and their knightly oaths. Rulings of knights are also quite appealable. They are law enforcement, but a key legal step above a typical member of the Constabulary. Many of their acts have become important precedents in common law.

Rostra Ligitatus: Royal, Noble, Knightly and Judiciary Rulings Announced by Magistrate

Case law. It refers to the ancient Roman practice of announcing the results of litigation from the Rostra (speaker's platform) of the Comitium. Alleged violations of and disputes over national, provincial or local law can be heard by many people. Whole libraries of legal disputes describe cases brought before the King or other members of the Royal Family, nobles who have right of sake, knights, and other secular judges presiding over trials. After legal judgements are made, the results are noted by the Royal Magistrates and posted for all to know.

This includes appeals processes, which can be quite lengthy. For a knight's ruling might be appealed to a local magistrate on the basis of civil law. Rulings of local magistrates can be appealed all the way up through local and provincial judges, to the Lord Chancellor and even King. Or the person could appeal to the knight's feudal lord, and ask the lord to overturn his feudal subject's decision.

It should be noted that the Rostra includes both common law -- that which was made by magistrates alone -- as well as aristocratic judgements.

Lastly, this also includes penal law, which analyses judgement of punishments: fines, probations, incarceration and parole, capital or corporal punishment.

Canon Law

The Church of Listeneisse maintains its own legal system and judgement. It is mostly involved with issues of marriage and family law when the parties volunteer to appeal to the church rather than secular magistrates. It also includes laws particular to the behavior of clergy and parishioners. It does not apply its laws to those who are not of the Church. However, if it makes a decision, it can often ensure that a Magistrate passes a similar civil judgement to give it weight of civil law also.

Many members of the church also hold extensive properties, manors, and associated feudal rights over territories. Judgements of clerics acting as feudal rulers passing laws under the right of sake should not be confused with canonical law, which is reserved strictly for issues of the church and its business.

Listeneisse' Canon Law is similar to, but should not be viewed as the same as the Roman Catholic Canon Law. For instance, the Church of Listeneisse believes in birth control. While it loathes abortion and is leery of cloning, it does not outrightly condemn these practices -- it does not excommunicate women who have abortions -- nor can it make legally binding rulings over them without the King's assent (because of royal decree). It seeks to counsel for adoption instead and prays for the soul of the child who was not born into the world. (The Church believes the soul is sacred and the body is merely the vessel for the child to enter the world. It upholds the miracle of rising from the dead was proven by God on many occasions; therefore the souls of aborted children will get new bodies eventually. Yet this is a relatively new revelation. The issue is still hotly debated and rejected in conservative church circles.)

Canon law often hears issues of family law (marriages, adoptions, spousal or parental neglect or abuse, annulments and divorce), lay complaints about the clergy, and about each other (such as whether an act was an un-Christian thing to do; it can offer counsel and suggest confession and acts of public service from both plaintiff and defendent).

The Church recognizes it is not universally held by all parties. It is usually only appealed to when the major parties involved in a dispute are all members of the Church and agree to abide by the church's ruling. If there are any problems with this, the matter is directed towards the secular judiciary. Some atheists wonder if there even need to be canon laws and find it a waste of taxpayer money. Many find them to be a far more compassionate place for all parties to at least hear their cases out (even if they are ruled against in finding), deeming the secular magisterial courts far too business-like and "efficient."

The rules for priests or bishops to preside over a canon court allows for them to pass cases where there is a conflict of interest to other parishes and diocese, or to convene tribunals or church councils if the issue needs to be resolved or reviewed with a broad perspective.