[jason taylor]

Civis Imperialius Sum :

The name for formal right of all Imperial citizens to appeal for protection from the Imperium. As the Imperium seldom wishes to interfere with local law it is only rarely granted, usually in cases where the law requires something extremely questionable by Imperial standards(forced polygamy or mandatory suicide for rape victims for instance) or when the crime has a political aspect to it. Also there is the practical aspect that the defendant must make contact with Imperial officials in the first place which can mean a long journey to a starport while under pursuit. Counterintuitively, in the case of political crimes it has been known for the prosecutor to secretly make the appeal and to ask the Imperium to preemptorily give a "protection" that the defendant did not actually desire. The most well-known scenario for such would-be where the loser of a civil war had survived and the victor wanted him kept off the planet more then they wanted the trouble of tracking him down and possibly being forced to go through the difficulty of an exasperating trial. This would in effect be asking the Imperium to enforce an exile in situations where using those exact words might be politically uncomfortable.