Post by Kamenwati on Nov 22, 2011 14:56:14 GMT -6
Law of the Land
I DECREE ALL PEOPLE OF THE TAMAZGHA, shall affirm by oath and covenant that he shall be loyal to the Amir, both within and without all of the Tamazgha, that he shall preserve with him his lands and honor with all fidelity and defend him against his enemies.
TO ALL FREE PEOPLE OF THE TAMAZGHA , we have also granted, for us and our heirs forever, all the liberties written out below, to have and to keep for them and their heirs, of us and our heirs:
1. All citizens must uphold the given laws of the kingdom. One is not free of these laws due to sex, social, or religious class. All grievances and judgment on lesser crimes shall be in accordance with the Law of the Land.
2. The al-Jama'a al-'Ashara and the appointed Viziers, and those in their service have the right to make arrests, with the authority vested in them by the Amir, of all persons, no matter of station or religious affiliations. They shall present the Amir’s warrant when entering places of worship, and be diligent in observing caution and discretion in matters that call upon matters that require a higher level of discerning to dispense justice.
3. All people have the right to petition their Governors on local lands for a say in grievances and expect an appropriate resolution to be the outcome.
4. Governors may oversee judgment on petty crimes, with all decisions on any matter presented to the Amir to be recorded in the annuals of legal matters at Fez.
5. The Law of the Land shall be divided in two: High Justice and Low Justice
a.) High Justice:
Murder, rape, treason, crimes against royal officials or other nobility, Brigandage, similar crimes that occur a multiplicity of times, abductions, ransoms, affairs concerning children, or abuses of station, privilege, or grievous abuses of one person to another, or the abuse of animals such as those for livelihood shall be seen as High Justice and are at the dispensing of the Amir to oversee or be overseen by elected persons deemed worthy to judge such at the palace at Fez.
(1.) Due Process:
All people suspected of High Justice crimes have the right to a hearing before the Amir with witnesses and a small assembly of peers to determine guilt or innocence in due process. When a person is accused of something, both accused and accuser must be present at a hearing on the matter. Also, if both parties don't show up for a hearing, the appointed judge is free to rule in favor of the party that did show up. It also says that if a person fails to show up as a trial witness, then that person shall never again be allowed to be a witness. Most importantly, it says that a person shown to have lied in hearing shall be put to death.
(2.) Punishment:
High Justice crimes are punishable by prolonged sentences of imprisonment and in some instance by death. Only the Amir may sentence anyone to death.
b.) Low Justice:
Petty theft, assault, slander, gossip, issues of morality where a party brings complaints of adultery to be heard and fined, and minor business infractions between merchants, all of these things shall be considered "Affairs of the Governor.".
(1.) Affairs of the Governor:
Governors may redress grievances on their lands with institution of fines, resolving thefts, solving disputes among common persons such as assaults, slander, gossip, and issues of local morality that tantamount to low justice living on their land with clear, sound judgment as befits them when representing the law.
(2.) One may take an "Affair of the Governors" judgment to the Amir’s Court for appeal, but be advised the ruling Governor's judgment shall not be overturned without proper reason or evidence.
6. Freedmen of all classes are entitled to religious freedom to practice faith as they see fit, to celebrate ritual and observe rites of that faith. All practices are allowed religious toleration, so long as the practice does not defy established laws or cause great harm/loss of life.
Crime and Punishment
NOTE: One mina (a mina was a unit of weight… 1/60 of a pound of gold)
One mina is equal to 60 shekels (1 shekel = 11 grams of gold, or 22 grams of silver).
If the accused does not have gold or silver, he is to give a slave or another thing of equal value that belongs to him.
1. If a man commits a murder, that man must be killed.
2. If a man commits a robbery, he shall be killed.
3. If a man commits a kidnapping, he is to be imprisoned and pay 15 shekels of silver. If the kidnapped is killed, the kidnapper shall be killed.
4. If a slave marries a slave, and that slave is set free, the male does not leave the household.
5. If a slave marries a free person, he/she is to hand the firstborn son over to his owner.
6. If a man violates the right of another and deflowers the virgin wife of a young man, they shall kill that male.
7. If the wife of a man followed after another man and he slept with her, they shall slay that woman, but that male shall be set free.
8. If a man proceeded by force, and deflowered the virgin slavewoman of another man, that man must pay five shekels of silver.
9. If a man divorces his first-time wife, he shall pay her one mina of silver.
10. If it is a (former) widow whom he divorces, he shall pay her half a mina of silver.
11. If the man had slept with the widow without there having been any marriage contract, he need not pay any silver.
12. If a man is accused of sorcery he must undergo ordeal by water; if he is proven innocent, his accuser must pay 3 shekels.
13. If a man accused the wife of a man of adultery, and the river ordeal proved her innocent, then the man who had accused her must pay one-third of a mina of silver. (11)
14. If a prospective son-in-law enters the house of his prospective father-in-law, but his father-in-law later gives his daughter to another man, the father-in-law shall return to the rejected son-in-law twofold the amount of bridal presents he had brought.
15. If a slave escapes from the city limits, and someone returns him, the owner shall pay two shekels to the one who returned him.
16. If a man knocks out the eye of another man, he shall weigh out ½ a mina of silver.
17. If a man has cut off another man’s foot, he is to pay ten shekels.
18. If a man, in the course of a scuffle, smashed the limb of another man with a club, he shall pay one mina of silver.
19. If someone severed the nose of another man with a copper knife, he must pay two-thirds of a mina of silver.
20. If a man knocks out a tooth of another man, he shall pay two shekels of silver.
21. If a man’s slave-woman, comparing herself to her mistress, speaks insolently to her, she may be sold to the lowest bidder, or if not sold, the slave shall receive five lashes from the Mistress.
22. If a man appeared as a witness, and was shown to be a perjurer, he must pay fifteen shekels of silver.
23. If a man appears as a witness, but withdraws his oath, he must make payment, to the extent of the value in litigation of the case.
24. If a man stealthily cultivates the field of another man and he raises a complaint, this is however to be rejected, and this man shall lose his expenses.
25. If a man flooded the field of a man with water, he shall measure out three barrels of barley per hectare of field.
26. If a man had let an arable field to another man for cultivation, but he did not cultivate it, turning it into wasteland, he shall measure out three barrels of barley per hectare of field, or unable to provide such compensation, the accused shall work for the accuser for 60 days.
27. If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then the builder shall be put to death.
28. If a son strikes his father, his hands shall be hewn off.
29. If a man gives his child to a nurse and the child dies in her hands, but the nurse, unbeknown to the father and mother, nurses another child, then they shall convict her of having nursed another child without the knowledge of the father and mother and her breasts shall be cut off.
30. If anyone steals the minor son of another, he shall be put to death, and the assailant’s children shall be enslaved to the grieving family.
31. If a man takes a woman as a wife, but has no intercourse with her, this woman is no wife to him.
32. If a man strikes a pregnant woman, thereby causing her to miscarry and die, the assailant shall be put to death and any child of his enslaved.
33. If a man puts out the eye of an equal, his eye shall be put out.
34. If a man knocks the teeth out of another man, his own teeth shall be knocked out.
35. If anyone strikes the body of a man higher in rank than he, he shall receive sixty blows with an ox-whip in public.
36. If a freeborn man strikes the body of another freeborn man of equal rank, he shall pay one gold mina.
37. If the slave of a freed man strikes the body of a freed man, his ear shall be cut off.
38. If anyone commits a robbery and is caught, he shall be put to death.
39. If a judge tries a case, reaches a decision, and presents his judgment in writing; and later it is discovered that his decision was in error, and it was his own fault, he shall pay twelve times the fine set by him in the case and be removed from the judge's bench.
40. The groom shall pay a bride-price, either of cattle, land, horses, gold, jewels, or silver, to the Father of the bride. Husband and wife retain individual rights to property, goods and possessions each bring to the marriage.
41. If a pregnant woman craves a morsel of food and her husband withholds it through stinginess, meanness or neglect he must pay a fine.