Vaestic law

Vaestic or zaconic law (High Secote: ⰈⰀⰍⰑⰐⰟ, zakonŭ) is the body of law produced in the Vaestic tradition. Its contemporary content varies according to individual Banners, and its immediate sources range from prescriptions laid down in the era of the Prophet through the decrees of the Neritsovid Prophet-Emperors to decisions promulgated by modern Standard-Bearers.

Particularly in the criminal sphere, Vaestic law takes as its principal objective not to regulate and punish particular actions, but to restrict heresy and secure the righteousness of individual characters, a practice known as character judgement. In the Vaestic tradition, then, laws will typically deal with the determination of the psychical consequences of a propensity towards particular behaviours, rather than the significance of the conduct of the actions themselves. Character judgement depends not just on formal legislation, but on long and varying traditions of precedent laid down by previous Scholars at every level, from local officeholders to the summit of the Prysostaia. Since the High Radiance of the 19th century, Vaestic law has also been informed by the development of purificationist methods of measuring character on a quantitative basis through the numerical evaluation of personality traits.

The basic instrument of Vaestic law is the character tribunal. This comprises a commission of a small number of Scholars, or a Scholar supported by specialist Acolytes, which will evaluate the character of individuals suspected of unrighteousness and prescribe necessary remedial measures. Such judgements are also frequently rendered on corporate persons, most commonly estates, and in the twentieth century entire Banners were occasionally the subject of character judgement. Character tribunals also serve to mediate disputes and evaluate civil decisions of diverse types: in these cases, character judgements will continue to be meted out, but will often form only the background to a more focused consideration of the details of the issues at stake. Participation in character tribunals is a routine expectation of Scholars, though the bulk of the work is conducted by their Acolytes. The members of superior tribunals will usually require specialist legal qualifications.

Aside from its treatment of characters, Vaestic law also includes regulations of a political, economic, and administrative character that pertain nominally to the general safeguarding of Knowledge in Vaestic societies, encompassing instruments such as eugenic regulations, tax codes, constitutional norms, and the apportioning of land and slaves. These regulations are typically introduced by means of a legal document called an Imperial Utterance. Much of this broader canon descends ultimately from Secote, Argote, and late Chotarian practices that were reformulated and reconciled only haltingly with Vaestic hierological expectations over the course of the Neritsovid era and the early Radiance. Such regulations may explicitly prescribe certain measures as matters of routine precedent that do not demand the attention of character tribunals, and are generally seen as subsidiary to the more finely calibrated process of character judgement. The introduction of quantitative methods in character judgement has, however, enabled more far-reaching integration between these two forms of law.

The codification of Vaestic law is an ongoing process, as precedents are continually set and modified by character tribunals at varying levels of different Banner hierarchies. Efforts to record significant character judgements and summarise precedents began at a local level very early in Vaestic history, but common standards were lacking. By the time of the Wars of Heresy, legal practices varied significantly even within particular cities. The first attempt to summarise the zaconic law systematically was initiated by Nerits, and came about with the Mirror of Characters in the Assembled Theoretics. The Mirror proved a powerful precedent, and established a tradition of specialist legal commentary that grew remarkably over the course of the Neritsovid period. Beginning with Sobiebor II, the type and scale of appropriate punishments was stringently standardised in the main provinces of the empire and a sizeable body of universal precedents was formalised.

Despite the interventionism of powerful later emperors such as Ostrobor the Pious, however, different regions of the empire continued to develop divergent standards of character judgement, with looser or more stringent thresholds for the application of particular measures. With the end of the empire, these standards soon developed into fully-fledged parallel traditions of law, and besides the various rulers' administrative regulations a chaos of competing interpretations prevailed in the nebulous political conditions of the 18th century. It was only with the rise of the Radiance Banner-state and the emergence of a politically entrenched Scholarly elite that legal codes would once again be tied firmly to sovereign administration.