Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

[tanksoldier]

Originally Posted by Icelander

The 'setting' I refer to being the real world.

Having served as a court security deputy and watched many criminal and civil cases play out in court, I strongly advise everyone to GO to court and just watch.

The legal system doesn’t actually function anything like you think it does.

[Irish Wolf]

Originally Posted by tanksoldier

Having served as a court security deputy and watched many criminal and civil cases play out in court, I strongly advise everyone to GO to court and just watch.

The legal system doesn’t actually function anything like you think it does.

As I recall, Tank, Icelander is in fact a lawyer.

In Iceland, as the name implies, so it may not work the same way as the courts you've observed...

[Bengt]

Way back in high school we had a day where we went and watched some cases in court. Turns out court is really really really boring, so don't break the law kids! :)

[L.J.Steele]

Way back in high school we had a day where we went and watched some cases in court. Turns out court is really really really boring, so don't break the law kids! :)

(Indignant) Hey.....ok, yes. Appellate attorneys may be the only ones who get excited that the state supreme court has taken up my statutory interpretation of a 1935 weapons in a vehicle statute to argue about what "knowingly has" means.

When I was in law school, one of the better bits of advice given to me was, go into a courtroom, anywhere in the state, watch for a couple of hours. You'll come out saying "I can do that" and probably "I can do that better".

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by L.J.Steele

When I was in law school, one of the better bits of advice given to me was, go into a courtroom, anywhere in the state, watch for a couple of hours. You'll come out saying "I can do that" and probably "I can do that better".

Isn't it kind of like most professions: you prepare extensively, for the express purpose of making the critical moments as boring (i.e. close to your expectations) as possible? Most of the actual work does not take place in the courtroom.

[tanksoldier]

Originally Posted by Irish Wolf

As I recall, Tank, Icelander is in fact a lawyer.

In Iceland, as the name implies, so it may not work the same way as the courts you've observed...

...except that I'm pretty much agreeing with him.

...and was really talking to everyone else.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Isn't it kind of like most professions: you prepare extensively, for the express purpose of making the critical moments as boring (i.e. close to your expectations) as possible? Most of the actual work does not take place in the courtroom.

I kind of suspect most doctors, lawyers, and police spend some portion of their work doing something besides having titilating affairs with each other, obsessing about each other's personal lives, or behaving like badasses when they are not doing the first two.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

I kind of suspect most doctors, lawyers, and police spend some portion of their work doing something besides having titilating affairs with each other, obsessing about each other's personal lives, or behaving like badasses when they are not doing the first two.

Television lied to us?

[David Johnston2]

A republic where membership in the legislature is hereditary but the nobles may not actually make laws but only propose for them for passage by plebiscite.

A god-king selected from the baby determined to have been born closest after the the last moment of the previous incumbent.

[Johnny1A.2]

A representative democracy, the legislative and executive and judicial organs are organized along some familiar lines (i.e. they might be congressional or parliamentary, prime ministerial or presidential), but the legislative has 2 chambers.

One chamber is elected along familiar geographical lines, however many reps per province or district or whatever.

But the electorate is also divided into 'tribes', or 'clans, or whatever word, not by blood but by lot. Each newborn is assigned to one of (say) 100 such groups, and remains in that group throughout life, no matter where he or she goes or what happens. That group elects representatives to the other chamber. Since assignment is by lot, it cuts across geographic lines, husband, wife, and four kids might be part of six different 'tribes'.

Naturalized citizens, likewise, are assigned to a 'tribe' by lot. The number of tribes is fixed and hard to change, and the lots are so set up to keep them approximately equal in numbers, to avoid the sort of shenanigans the Roman Republic saw.

Because you remain in your tribe no matter where you live, the 'constituencies' of the second chamber are blended together across the territory of the state. In theory, at least, over time the tribes out to end up even distributed across the state as well.

Functionally, it might behave somewhat like an 'at large' chamber, but various odd results might boil out.

It might be socially taboo to reveal what tribe you're part of, to avoid efforts to 'concentrate' some tribes in some area to give geographical leverage (for ex, Big Corp. Inc. might decide to preferentially personnel from Tribe 3 and Tribe 4, moving them to their home city, to give that city extra electoral heft).