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Old 01-28-2018, 04:02 PM   #1
David Johnston2
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Default Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

Understand something. These are not supposed to be improvements over anything that really exists or ever existed. Better or worse doesn't matter. What I'm looking for her is different, exotic variations on democracy, oligarchy or whatever to make interesting places to visit even if those places are doomed to fall apart in short order. Please do not waste any time and get the thread locked by saying that these ideas won't work. Anything can survive in the short term and it doesn't much matter to the player characters that a certain approach to governance is doomed within a dozen years if they'll be gone next week. I don't care whether it's a dumb idea. I just want ideas that aren't generic off the rack "every democracy is a western liberal democracy and every monarchy is medieval England". You can however ask for clarification of details. That being said, let's get started.

1. Constitutional Republic in which lawmaking power is invested in an assembly selected by random lot among the citizens, one per district.

2. Legal system in which no third party is allowed to argue in court on behalf of either accuser or respondent. The accused must defend itself. The accuser must have standing to argue that the issue affects them. (Thus family members of murder victims could prosecute the accused given that the victim is unable to) The judges are elected officials. The profession of "lawyer" still exists however to provide the parties with advice on how to proceed. They simply can't speak in court with a personal stake, or as witnesses.

3. Similarly a liberal democracy where it is illegal to identify yourself or anyone else on the ballot or in the media as being part of a political party. Political organizations still exist "unofficially" despite the intent of the law, but are only referred to in the media using circumlocutory code phrases.

4. A system where executive power is vested in the popularly elected Supreme Court with the First Justice assigning the others to head government departments. Meanwhile the planetary legislature consists of legislators who are appointed to their position for fixed terms by the state high courts (who are also popularly elected).

5. A constitutional monarchy where the kings have are appointed for a term of a single year after which they are ritually castrated and join a priesthood.

6. A republic where a single religion is so widespread and powerful that one must be blessed by a priest in order to have a chance of winning a run for office and the religion will deny that blessing to any politician who they consider to be irreligious, of another religion, or lacking in "moral character".

7. An ostensibly stateless society where real authority is vested in extended family groups. The head of the family (chosen as the heir by the previous head of the family) has dictatorial power over all family members that only ends if they marry out, or reject family membership. Rejecting your family when you don't have another to marry into makes you someone anyone can kill with impunity.

8. An ostensibly stateless society where most of the population live in towns owned and administered by their employers.

9. A monarchy, where the official monarch is a ceremonial position and the actual monarch is the head of the bureaucracy who is elected by votes from the nobility. (Including the official monarch but he only gets one vote.)

10. A world which has super powered people of some sort. In the wake of a war between the normals and the witches/supers they gained the right to only be tried and judged by their own "peers"

Last edited by David Johnston2; 01-28-2018 at 04:59 PM.
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