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Ministry of Justice

timerover51 said:
That explains why I could not place it. I am definitely NOT a fan of MegaTraveller.
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The Ministry of Justice originated with the article and (broken) character generation process for its "Special Branch" in one of the first FASA magazines for CT.

When folks say that a lot more of the OTU than people realize came from the early licensees, they aren't just spouting platitudes.
 
GypsyComet said:
The Ministry of Justice originated with the article and (broken) character generation process for its "Special Branch" in one of the first FASA magazines for CT.

When folks say that a lot more of the OTU than people realize came from the early licensees, they aren't just spouting platitudes.
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I will be very blunt at this point. If I do not physically own a copy of the source work, it is not CANON. It is not part of the OTU in my view.
 
Reban said:
Thats a great list, but what about the boring bits of running justice in an empire? I'd add the following

- Courts Service: The courts are the province of the Sector Dukle and other nobles but providing the clerks, bailiffs, and other personnel as well as the legal texts and procedures might be a function of the MoJ.

- Research: If the Imperium makes laws then there must be civil servants who do the leg work researching the problems/crimes that are being legislated for. Statistics on crime have to be gathered. All of the above might call for field researchers who work with local LEAs or other branches of Imperial government.

- Prisons: An Imperial Prison Service that builds, maintains and staffs prisons and prison planets should fall under MoJ responsibility.

- Standards: The Imperium is primarily a government that sets standards to ease commerce and communication between its members worlds. The MoJ would seek to standardize justice matters between worlds. Facilitating rendition/extradition between worlds, licencing bounty hunters, promoting minimum standards of evidence gathering and policing skills among local agencies.

All the boring work above of course can provide seeds for MoJ Agents out in the field.
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Yes, all of this would probably fall on MoJ. Another issue that might on its jurisdiction (probalby as part of the standards and courts you say) is salvage (and prize, when fighting against pirates) courts, and so the rewards the players may obtain from those activities (from a monetary reward to the whole hulk, hopefully repairable, they recover/take).

timerover51 said:
I will be very blunt at this point. If I do not physically own a copy of the source work, it is not CANON. It is not part of the OTU in my view.
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But latter references (moslty the ones quoted by Lostscout5 rom MT:RS) are quite so, regardless how much one loves or hates MT (as is virus, regardless what I personally can think about it).

And in any case, I guess the idea of the Imperium having some form of Judicial (and some Imperium-side pólice force) is something to be explected...
 
McPerth said:
But latter references (moslty the ones quoted by Lostscout5 rom MT:RS) are quite so, regardless how much one loves or hates MT (as is virus, regardless what I personally can think about it).

And in any case, I guess the idea of the Imperium having some form of Judicial (and some Imperium-side pólice force) is something to be explected...
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As I said, if I do not have a physical or digital copy (mainly Mongoose Traveller for this, and JTAS), I will not allow it in my games or view it as canon. Otherwise, a player could claim all sorts of things as canon from other Traveller editions or third-party works, without any means for me to verify that.

As for a Ministry of Justice, possible, but given the terrific time lag in communication to and from Capitol, I cannot see it functioning Imperium wide. Even sector-wide poses problems in time lag.

Also, if I am running Classic, as I prefer the original edition over the successors, a reference to MegaTraveller is a reference to something that does not exist in my Universe.
 
McPerth said:
Yes, all of this would probably fall on MoJ. Another issue that might on its jurisdiction (probalby as part of the standards and courts you say) is salvage (and prize, when fighting against pirates) courts, and so the rewards the players may obtain from those activities (from a monetary reward to the whole hulk, hopefully repairable, they recover/take).
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Hmmm. Now there might be a point of difference between us. Drawing on real world history I'd assign Prize Courts and Admiralty Courts (that adjudicate things like salvage) to the Navy. The local sector or subsector Admiral is easier to find and apply to than either a Noble (who is the authority under which the Imperial courts are held) or a MoJ representative. Having an Admiral of the Navy sit in judgement about matters in space beyond the 100D limit makes sense to me.

Likewise law related to spacecraft IMTU is derived from the Starport Authority Regulations and the Ministry of Commerce.

The other interesting legal responsibility might be an Imperial Court of Chancery. A court that decides all matters to do with wills, estates and inheritance. Since these matters would relate mostly to Imperial Nobles it might make sense to take them out of the High Justice sytem in which Nobles are the judges/jurists and assign non biased MoJ agents or functionaries to be judges.

Which gives me a great idea to include a Jarndyce and Jarndyce case as a subplot in some future campaign.
 
Returning to the question of what nobles do and whether prosecutors would be knights, consider the MoJ we've built here.

It employs judges, investigators, and prosecutors, but also a veritable army of functionaries acting as lawyers, legal assistants, clerks, bailiffs, prison wardens and prison guards, researchers, statisticians, coordinators, coffee replenishers, and donut orderers ... and that's following Reban's sensible suggestion that prize courts remain with the Navy and commercial law with other agencies.

Given all these functions, are nobles really running around investigating crimes, or are they just sitting back and running the show from their home offices? Mostly the latter, I think. But that's enough rehashing that particular point. :)
 
Reban said:
Hmmm. Now there might be a point of difference between us. Drawing on real world history I'd assign Prize Courts and Admiralty Courts (that adjudicate things like salvage) to the Navy. The local sector or subsector Admiral is easier to find and apply to than either a Noble (who is the authority under which the Imperial courts are held) or a MoJ representative. Having an Admiral of the Navy sit in judgement about matters in space beyond the 100D limit makes sense to me.

Likewise law related to spacecraft IMTU is derived from the Starport Authority Regulations and the Ministry of Commerce.
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Well, I agree with you about prizes in military matters, and in fact i was thinking more about salvage when I wrote my previous post, but the occasional defeated pirate's ship (unless defeated by the Navy or another Imperial Service, I was thinking on a merchant/private owned ship,m so in fact a player's ship, capturing a pirate one) might well fall under MoJ jurisdiction, as prosecuting piracy falls under it.

Reban said:
The other interesting legal responsibility might be an Imperial Court of Chancery. A court that decides all matters to do with wills, estates and inheritance. Since these matters would relate mostly to Imperial Nobles it might make sense to take them out of the High Justice sytem in which Nobles are the judges/jurists and assign non biased MoJ agents or functionaries to be judges.

Which gives me a great idea to include a Jarndyce and Jarndyce case as a subplot in some future campaign.
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For Imperial tiltes and such, sure, for planetary ones not so much.

When a planetary title is tied to an Imperial title (e,g, the King of a planet being accepted by the Imperium as its Imperial Marquis) there may be conflict...

welsh said:
Returning to the question of what nobles do and whether prosecutors would be knights, consider the MoJ we've built here.

It employs judges, investigators, and prosecutors, but also a veritable army of functionaries acting as lawyers, legal assistants, clerks, bailiffs, prison wardens and prison guards, researchers, statisticians, coordinators, coffee replenishers, and donut orderers ... and that's following Reban's sensible suggestion that prize courts remain with the Navy and commercial law with other agencies.
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Off course not all this army would be nobility, but the judges are (according the few canon we have), prosecutors probably, and I already made the case for some special agents to be raised to knights to empower them.

As for the rest, they don't need to be nobles (thoug for field agents the expectative to rise to special agent and so to knighthood may wel lbe a nice incentive

welsh said:
Given all these functions, are nobles really running around investigating crimes, or are they just sitting back and running the show from their home offices? Mostly the latter, I think.
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As for those offices that require a noble, I guess the noble personally perform them (after all is their duty, and if one accepts the privileges he/she must also accept the obligations.

See also that some might be raised to nobility just to perform those funcions (I talked about special knighted agents, but there can also be some others taht by performing good in their posts are elevated to honorary nobles so that they can act as prosecutors or judges...

welsh said:
But that's enough rehashing that particular point. :)
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Why so? is it already boring you ;)?
 
timerover51 said:
Look on Project Gutenberg for downloads of just about everything except the Gunpowder God series.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=h+beam+piper&go=Go

You can also find a lot of his books by searching on Abebooks.com
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Thanks. I will try that. Looking through my old Traveler books I found Gurps Nobles contains a detailed look at the Ministry of Justice with four kinds of courts: Criminal, Civil, Admiralty, and High Court.

Criminal Court: What everybody thinks of when they think of the Imperial court, tries all criminal cases, including treason by non-nobles.

Civil Court: Deals mainly with contract disputes and noncriminal infringement of Imperial Law.

Admiralty Court: Adjucates cases concerning interstellar trade, piracy, barratry, and high jacking. The courts are run by the Navy but according to standards set by the MoJ, which also handles punishments.

High Court: The High Court only tries two kinds of cases, treason by nobles, and inheritance disputes. The ultimate justice for this court is the Emperor himself.

Some other details:
The MoJ also oversees the Imperial Bar Association, licensing lawyers to practice law in front of Imperial Courts across the Imperium.

War crimes are also tried by the Imperium.

All Imperial Justices must be Nobles.

Justices are appointed by High Nobles: Archdukes, Dukes, and Counts.

GT Nobles also contains 2 character templates, Special Agent and Court Legate.
 
timerover51 said:
Hmm, sort of like Bish Ware in H. Beam Piper's Four Day Planet.

"Well, Mr. Ware is a Terran Federation Executive Special Agent

Everybody knows about Executive Special Agents. There are all kinds of secret agents operating in the Federation—Army and Navy Intelligence, police of different sorts, Colonial Office agents, private detectives, Chartered Company agents. But there are fewer Executive Specials than there are inhabited planets in the Federation. They rank, ex officio, as Army generals and Space Navy admirals; they have the privilege of the floor in Parliament, they take orders from nobody but the President of the Federation. But very few people have ever seen one, or talked to anybody who has.
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You can find all sorts of ideas in Piper's stuff.
__________________
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Sounds more like the holder of an Imperial Warrant
 
James is more like the state assassin. He's no "secret agent", otherwise why do all the Bad Guys^TM say, "Well, hello, Mr Bond!" whenever he rocks up?

;-)

Anyway, many years ago I created an MT version of a MoJ chargen.

Even if you don't like the chargen itself, I included a fairly long bibliography at the end, so you can see all the sources I drew my inspiration from (when it comes to Traveller, I'm fairly catholic in my tastes - "All Traveller, All The Time"...). FWIW, the earliest reference to MoJ I can find is in the High Passage adventure "The Cobra Conspiracy", where the "Head" of MoJ (obviously riffing off the d'Alembert Series) is given a name - Duke Daranth En La. This was in 1981, so definitely a CT reference (even if not a GDW one).

There's also a link to my version of a Police chargen system.

They're both on my website, under:
--> Tavonni Repair Bays
--> House Rules
-->Ministry of Justice (MoJ) Characters for MegaTraveller
or
--> Police Characters for MegaTraveller

On both pages, I also have a link to a scenarios page, that shows the possible Challenge, Chronicle, Digest and MT Journal scenarios that might suit MoJ or Police characters.

IYTU, of course, and YMMV. ;-)
 
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talos402000 said:
Thanks. I will try that. Looking through my old Traveler books I found Gurps Nobles contains a detailed look at the Ministry of Justice with four kinds of courts: Criminal, Civil, Admiralty, and High Court.

Criminal Court: What everybody thinks of when they think of the Imperial court, tries all criminal cases, including treason by non-nobles.

Civil Court: Deals mainly with contract disputes and noncriminal infringement of Imperial Law.

Admiralty Court: Adjucates cases concerning interstellar trade, piracy, barratry, and high jacking. The courts are run by the Navy but according to standards set by the MoJ, which also handles punishments.

High Court: The High Court only tries two kinds of cases, treason by nobles, and inheritance disputes. The ultimate justice for this court is the Emperor himself.

Some other details:
The MoJ also oversees the Imperial Bar Association, licensing lawyers to practice law in front of Imperial Courts across the Imperium.

War crimes are also tried by the Imperium.

All Imperial Justices must be Nobles.

Justices are appointed by High Nobles: Archdukes, Dukes, and Counts.

GT Nobles also contains 2 character templates, Special Agent and Court Legate.
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That's quite close to what we depicted here, both in the branches and what its opperatives are...

Hyphen said:
There's also a link to my version of a Police chargen system.

They're both on my website, under:
--> Tavonni Repair Bays
--> House Rules
-->Ministry of Justice (MoJ) Characters for MegaTraveller
or
--> Police Characters for MegaTraveller

On both pages, I also have a link to a scenarios page, that shows the possible Challenge, Chronicle, Digest and MT Journal scenarios that might suit MoJ or Police characters.

IYTU, of course, and YMMV. ;-)
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Nice.

Just let me point you what I see as an errata: in the assignment resolution you have the assignment "raid" in some branches, when it's not in the assignment table. Converesely, "Counter-insurgency" is not, so I guess it should be instead of "raid".
 
When the MoJ was initially mentioned in the Rebellion Sourcebook, I just sort of nodded my head without much thought.

In the years that have passed, ideas like the "Ministry of Justice" and concepts like "Imperial Worlds" have successively made less and less sense to me. Follows onto this are things like the role of nobles, the "tax base of Imperium", starport extraterritoriality, and the entire concept that the Imperium doesn't rule worlds it rules the space between them.

In short, I cannot possibly see how it works, at all.

IMTU, my compromise to make it all work is the idea that there are "Imperial worlds" and "Imperial Member Worlds" and while the names sound similar, they're very different.

Imperial Member World - This is your archtypical "classic" Traveller world. The starport has extraterritoriality; the Imperium takes the attitude of "what happens on Vegas stays on Vegas" and doesn't care if you have wars, chattel slavery, or whatever and just looks the other way even if it is against the rules of the Imperium; the world doesn't pay taxes to the Imperium directly. How the local noble is determined varies; sometimes it is the ruler(s) of the world, other times it's a person who actually has little power on the world and instead acts as a go-between if the world has something it wants to bring before the Iridium Throne. In some cases, like Red Zone worlds, the local noble may be someone nobody on the world has ever heard of and is basically "an expert on the world" that the Imperium can consult should they have some interest on the world. These worlds tend to economically languish. Merchants don't like to trade and corporations don't like to do business on them because they don't want to deal with the (presumably) loony local laws and customs (all of this class of world have a "reputation" -- even if they're reasonable they are stereotyped badly). Typically interstellar trade goes through the starport and the Imperium takes a cut of any goods that cross from the starport to the world and vice versa (it helps fund the starport and on some worlds pays for it entirely and even turns a profit); many worlds also have their own tariffs. These tariffs decrease profit margins, again discouraging trade. People from these worlds can join the Navy, Marines, or Scouts if they'd like and your world lets you but you have to make your way to the starport to do so (no mean task if your world is TL4 or below) however there is no Draft. Local solar system forces are closely monitored. Many worlds that have little interest in interstellar contact and trade exist in the Member Worlds category; it works out for both sides. The Member Worlds can rest easy knowing nobody will invade them from the stars, the Imperium can rest easy knowing this world won't suddenly purchase a TL12 navy and go rampaging about.

Imperial World - These worlds are governed directly by the Emperor (well okay, they're governed by men and women who go up a chain of nobles and servants who have sworn fealty to the Emperor). This is where the Imperial system as often described by GDW functions; the world is ruled by nobles and the Imperial bureaucracy, there's the draft, and so on. The archtypical TL12 Imperial standard world is this. The worlds have much less freedom to order their own affairs than even a modern day province/state/prefecture in a nation of our own world. They're more like a typical city (not some "former free city-state which negotiated entry into nation when it formed" either) in regards to local laws. Many of these worlds were settled after the Imperium was established, but other worlds have come around to "Imperial Standard" on their own or are this way because they were conquered by the 3I in the past and their local government abolished. The big benefit as far as these worlds are concerned is that corporations love to do business on them and merchants like to trade on them because the business environment; the laws are stable and variations are small and predictable; you know the laws of that world before you even Jump out there making for a stable business environment. The starport doesn't have extraterritoriality because ... well in a sense the starport is the entire world. Local system defense forces use the Imperial seal and operate as an extension of the Imperial armed forces. This is where the Imperial Army (of GURPS-Trav fame) comes from. These worlds consist of the tax base of the Imperium and tax revenues are divided up between local concerns and the larger Imperium. These worlds are often derided as being "cookie cutter" - stereotypically there's not much variation in culture, language, and so on and these worlds consist of the "Imperial culture" of the 3I and standard Galanglic is taught in the schools (on the other hand, there's no danger of your unescorted female crew getting carried off by some guy seeking a wife because women are considered property or similar wonky and hazardous local customs).

Imperial Worlds are less in number than Imperial Member Worlds. I've never really thought of what the exact percentage is, but I think something like 60/40 split? 60% of worlds are Imperial Member Worlds and 40% are Imperial Worlds (maybe 70/30). However, economically, 80% of the most affluent worlds of the Imperium are Imperial Worlds and the individual income and quality of life has a vast gulf between these two types of worlds - Imperial Worlds live better on average (there are exceptions). A disproportionate percentage of the High Population worlds of the Imperium and higher TL worlds of the Imperium are Imperial Worlds as opposed to Imperial Member Worlds. Imperial Worlds are the economic reality of the Imperium and effectively are the Gross National Product of the 3I; collectively the Imperial Member Worlds are pretty irrelevant to the economic well-being of the Imperium on the whole (again a few Member Worlds are very economically powerful, but your average Member World contributes little and gets little back). The "TL gap" is most pronounced on Imperial Worlds - many have a locally sustainable TL of like 3 or something but everyone lives at TL12 because everything is imported because it is a mining facility on some airless world which is totally owned by a few corporations.

The MoJ: The MoJ is the face of Justice on Imperial Worlds. They run the courts, internal security forces have to be maintained according to the rules put out by the MoJ and local forces are in legal terms "deputized" by the MoJ to administer local justice but are (technically) under the oversight of the MoJ, and they maintain the courts, and so on. The MoJ is nothing to laugh at because they're the law and order on the most important planets of the Imperium.

The MoJ also has a presence on Member Worlds as well. They administer justice in starports. Legally they have no say in what goes on beyond the starport. In reality, they do have agents and so on which may be sent into Member Worlds to grab fugitives, investigate rumors of violations of Imperial High Law, and so on. MoJ agents are special cases; they're nobles but working nobles -- Barons, though a special case where the patent technically ends when they retire (they may get a fief though it is always land of modest economic value - like the kind of place you might make a cabin - most don't take the option since the fief would be offworld and may even be many Jumps away, some retire to them though), though customarily they're allowed to be ceremonially referred to as Baron in Imperial high society for the rest of their lives if they were honorably retired; very few exercise that ceremonial right regularly after they quit due to the notoriety of their job and the fact Imperial society frowns upon people claiming noble titles when they can't live up to it (and the pensions of these agents isn't that big), however. They don't get to sit in the Moot (though they can enter the Moot because of their rank for official business). However not a few people have been surprised when their thoroughly middle-class friend takes them to the local Starport's equivalent of a USO club, show an ID and server refers to him as "Baron" and get free drinks and a meal or can get your child a college grant eligible only to knights and other "honor" nobility.

On Member Worlds, MoJ agents have to work in their own discretion and step carefully; often it is better for a fugitive to get away than it is for the MoJ agent to be caught or for some assassination to be traced by the Imperium. Similarly, just because a Member World has nuclear weapons doesn't mean the Imperium will do anything about it - the information will be recorded and that reality kept in mind for the future. Not all MoJ agents are cloak-and-dagger. If a fugitive, illegal smuggling, nuclear weapons, etc. is suspected on a Member World, the MoJ agent may arrive openly to negotiate behind closed doors with the locals (where the noble rank helps impressing the locals). However, they may also enter James Bond style to get actual evidence, do wet work (in some cases), and so on. Sometimes a single agent does both - these kinds of MoJ agents aren't common; they're not intended to catch every instance of lawbreaking. They're more of a reminder that the arm of the Imperium is long (even if its grasp is weak at times).
 
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Reminds me of a character I had.

There was a war on, so I rolled a navy fast pursuit pilot. Born on an asteroid in an empty parsec, great pilot, dex and pistol skill, and a good navigator. After the first mission he decided he hated his job. It was far to dangerous and a normal capital ship pilot would be a lot smarter. Fast pursuit had a life expectancy of one year. But there we're no capital ships to transfer too at this point.

As he was off duty at the starport an associate (scientist/captain) had a very sensitive portable computer stolen (the player was stressed). We all split up. I hunted down the thief (the guy's girlfriend/bodyguard) on the edge of the starport. My character informed her she was under arrest, by the navy, and to go with him. She sized him up said no and began to walk off. He shot her dead. He was debriefed turning things over to the Navy security. He was feeling a bit guilty and got drunk. Ended up getting himself sick and woke up in the navy hospital.

Wakes up to an officer telling him to report for duty at a certain office and time. He decides to pick up his monthly pay on the way having spent everything at the bar. At the purser's office he was asked "what is like to work for them!" You know "Them!" In character "fast pursuit?" i responded. :confused:
"No, you have the code," the purser said. "Look at your service number; Branch Navy, incept location, incept date, and then last 3 digits are your code." The ref handed me the character's new id number. I read out loud the personnel number, location number, the date, and then 0 0 9.

The whole group fell out of their chairs laughing. :rofl:

After the character collected a much nicer, but humble, pay from the purser he proceeded to the previously mentioned office.

The captain there explained it to my character. Command had a choice of transferring you to intelligence, with a "license to kill" or the stockade with a court marshal for murder 1. Since, there was significant "circumstantial" evidence that the woman was responsible they chose the first solution.
He informed him that he was now known to the enemy agents after reporting the woman's death and the mission was to flush more of them out and find the computer. :eek: He also handed me the code to a scout ship.:cool:

And that was the beginning of the adventure.

So, Refs. If you want to make a splash in a campaign "transfer" someone. :p
 
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Went over the Mongoose Traveller agents MoJ entry, and it is largely as many of you define it, crimes committed as Imperial High crimes as noted including extraterritorial starports and presumably space.

Notable features-

* MoJ handles everything- investigation, creating and assigning judges, prisoner transport and handling, prison operations. About the only thing they don't handle is the accused's defense.

* No jury trials, no appeal, verdict is final and binding throughout Imperial Space.

* In high profile cases the MoJ may assign a tribunal rather then a single judge.

* The MoJ IS sensitive to the function of appearing to dispense certain but fair justice as an element of ruling the Imperium.

* Judges come from the nobility.

* Resources are stretched so the MoJ makes use of hiring local LE, bounty hunters, professional security etc.

* The same resource issues means your supervisor may be 10 parsecs away, so Imperial agents have a lot of leeway to get away with unsupervised activity- this may allow corruption and abuse of power to occur, but penalties are harsh for being caught at it.

Seems very Napoleonic Law to me.
 
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