Courts in Fenspace

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Civil court in Fenspace is a lot simpler than Earth/U.S.A. You get two parties who are in conflict, they agree on a judge (often an Erisian), and the judge takes care of the rest. This system of binding arbitration is slowly creating a "body of law," which happens to be nowhere near internally coherent, nor does it precisely follow the Articles of Convention. Both litigants pay for the judge's time.

Criminal court is similar, except that the accused doesn't always get a say in who the judge is. (Or judges - since it's often impossible to find a jury of the accused's peers, let alone compel them to hear a case, some Fen prefer to have a tribunal of at least three judges rule on serious crimes such as murder.) Judges for criminal cases are paid by philanthropic organizations such as the Nikaido Foundation.