In my next Jotting, I want to discuss trials, both civil and criminal. I
have a decent amount of information on some of the basic forms of a trial,
but what I have quite naturally applies only to Earth history and present
practice.
And I'm sure that different (even Western) cultures have very different procedural elements and laws that go into any form of legal proceeding, not to mention different approaches to jurisprudence.
What I'd like from the Group Mind is pointer to examples in SF of civil or
criminal "trials" that are at variance from the "standard forms" of
Adversarial, Inquisitorial, Combat, or Ordeal.
Let me then point you at Native North American 'sentencing circles' and 'restorative justice'. These processes are collaborative, involve the wronged and the person who committed the wrong, and the community is involved (elders and/or the broader community). Together, a resolution is arrived at. I don't know much detail, but it is profoundly different than the regular legal system in Canada.
An example would be the trial by Gowachin Law in Frank Herbert's _The
Dosadi Experiment_, which is superficially an Adversarial "bench trial"
(before judges, not a jury), but where the assumptions, rules, and
procedures are significantly different from the expected norms.
I suspect any society that integrates psionics has a very different approach to a legal/justice system (I put those together, but they aren't always appropriately grouped thus because one may have a focus on 'enforcing the law' and the other 'providing justice' which can make for a big difference in default assumptions, approaches, and outcomes). I will also note that, much like countries that put 'democratic' in their name but aren't, many systems that carry the tag 'justice' are really 'legal enforcement systems' rather than engines of justice. So the name can't be the guide... but perhaps the underlying tenets, laws, philosophies, etc. could be.
If you want to look at one minor example that makes a big difference: In the US, there is something called the Castle Doctrine. It is the notion that a person has a right to use force (perhaps lethal force) defending home and property (not just life). In Canada, you may exert lethal force (if you are in direct threat) to save a life or prevent injuries, but you may not do so for property. If someone breaks into your house and tries to steal something, you may not injure or kill them.
Another less clear and more broad range of clashes: Canada now has a mix of native justice forms (referenced above), British common law (evolved by being here and us now having our own Constitution about 38 years ago), and French seigneurial law. The French and English (British) laws have some different bases particularly around property - I don't claim to understand it, but Quebec laws differ notably from Ontario laws and those differences start in drawing from two different legal traditions.
Another example might be the Court of Political Justice on New Texas in H.
Beam Piper's _Lone Star Planet_, where in form it is a standard Common
Law/Adversarial trial of the accused, but in substance, it is in fact a
trial of the victim.
I have no objection to examples not originally written in English; it is
not, in my opinion, unlikely that such fiction is more likely to portray
alternatives based on the Civil Law/Inquisitorial system, as many countries
use that system - none of which speak English as a primary language.
However, I'd want pointers to English translations of anything longer than
a short story (the various on-line translators are generally pretty good -
but copy-paste-copynextchunk-paste-etc. can get tedious).
There's also places like Russia or China, where trials are far from impartial and tend to reflect the requirements of those with money and power directly (vs. indirectly in other jurisdictions).
Then there are military trials or terrorism/national security trials which both involve so much secrecy that even the advocates for the defense cannot see all of the details of an accusation. Espionage proceedings are another example as are the bogus trials used with P.O.W.s were the entire show trial has a coerced prisoner being forced to read statements of their 'guilt' for various crimes.
If you go far enough back, some trials were religious. That's the basis of the Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials. In some places, they still are (India and some other countries that still have stonings, etc, though I suspect in India those cases were probably once the formal approach and now are extra-judicial).
Roman (Republic/Imperial) law is more focused on 'lex talionis' - retributive law (an eye for an eye). That is, I suppose, one view of 'justice' and is represented in Western legal systems in the form of victim impact statements.
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