Fictional law

One of the things I like to show in stories is how the law might operate in other cultures, be those in the future or in a fantasy setting. I don't mean necessarily the laws against murder and theft, though those might be different in some interesting way, but rather how other societies might handle law suits.

For instance, our current system is poorly set up for the purpose of protecting those who need it the most. In other words, you can't get justice if you can't afford a lawyer or find one willing to work on a contingency since that means winning. That puts rich individuals and businesses ahead of the game when it comes to shoddy products and such. For the most part, our current society relies upon class actions, which are actually a rather recent innovation, and boycott of a product or business when the cost of the defective product is below the expense of an attorney. Mind you, this is not always the case, but it is largely how it appears.

Anyway, I'm working on a story that is basically a culture emerging from a horrible downfall of the previous civilization. So, a culture equivalent to ours is now in a medieval state of technology. They know of some advances in technology that can be achieved once they reacquire the knowledge and skills. Likewise, they know what those can create socially, so they're trying to create a new legal system that will better protect those who most need it.

So, any ideas?

If you share any, I have no problem with others using those same ideas in their own stories. Who knows? We might come up with workable ideas that others might later adopt in real life.

Ah, in one culture where a new law system is formulating because of a few minor advances, honor has been a keystone of their justice system. Except for those who oppose apprehension and might be killed in the process, their system provides for exile into the wilderness only if the offense is deemed serious enough. Otherwise, shame and minor beatings have been the primary punishments. Generally, the threat of banishment into a wilderness that is truly wild and requires protective barriers around each city is a sufficient deterrent.

Additionally, law enforcement is primarily administered by the merchants. Within the culture, all jobs are closed entry, though the guilds tend to work with each other when one finds itself in need of more people and another possesses too many. Then they would trade people through negotiations for better terms on contracts and such. This, of course, provided me with additional points of conflict and contention.

At the same time, it is a culture that has carefully excluded religion from its laws because the downfall of the previous technologically advanced civilization was caused by a deep religious rift where one faction was willing to kill itself in order to destroy all the others. Religion is considered personal and private, though there are signs that might be breaking down.

At the same time, there are other cultures that are deeply religious or have mixed religion with government along with harsher penalties. These are obviously in conflict with this loose alliance of city states composed of merchants and traders, though one other culture is allied with the city states. Several others lean in its favor because they've suffered attacks from the major antagonist.

Terra Aeterna, I quite agree with your suggestion that there are strong reasons to maintain the status quo in laws. That's the kind of backdrop that I'm looking at as two of the cultures collide, both good, and have to reach compromises in order to maintain their alliance. Alone, each could be picked off by one of the main aggressors. Since one culture is merchant-based and the other is labor-based, they have no choice but to reach some sort of mutual agreement where neither feels like a loser. Part of my problem is coming up with something practical and realistic enough that readers might believe it works.

Not having done any intensive research into it, but I came across an article about Arabic law that explained how it treated all offenses as a type of theft. I found it quite logical and hope to use something of that sort in what I'm working up. Still, the biggest problem is in creating a system where the developers are already aware of past inequities and are trying not to doom their system by repeating the past mistakes of an earlier culture when it comes to giving both sides equal representation regardless of their financial means.

I've been wondering lately whether it would be reasonable to have each pick the other's attorney. Of course, that could also present huge problems, but it would limit the costs to what the least affluent party to the conflict could afford and prevent a rich party from overwhelming the other side with a powerhouse.