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[Azerty]

Public law is about describing the functionning of a government

This post might be even longer than my proposal about civil law so be warned; I put a miniplan to put direct links to the parts you want to go to. After all, I've vorking on this since October 19, 2019!

Part 1: Introduction, Constitutional Law, Local Authorities
Part 2: Administrative Law, Judiciary
Part 3: Treasury, Relation with Populations, International Law

INTRODUCTION AND DEFINITIONS
For the purpose of this post, a state shall be defined as an institution exercising sovereignty over a population and a territory

Nomadic states would have sovereignty over their population and any territory they presently control until their next migration

Population
The population of a state is the group of sentients whom it rules. It shall be divided between subjects, who "belong" to this state, and foreigners, who don't

Territory
The territory of a state shall be the land on which it rules. Nomadic states would have instead an area of control, on which they would have rule only when present on it. Territory can be won or lost by sale, settlement of terra nullius or annexation

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
The subject of constitutional law shall be the government of a state and how its several powers and functions are managed

Government
A government is an institution ruling the state. The persons belonging to a government shall be denominated rulers

Rulers shall rule for a term of years or for life. They shall be chosen by methods including election, cooptation or (in the case of some life-term rulers) heredity. Some ruler offices could be ex officio: for exemple, the ruler(s) of a theocratic state would be the priest of the temple which founded this state (Vatican)

In some cases of life-term rulers, a position of designated succesor shall be established (heredity/personal choice by the ruler)

Some conditions might be imposed on rulers such as age, skills, religion or personal wealth. Additionally, electors might have conditions imposed on them too, such as belonging to a certain class

Regulations on rulers unable to exerce their responsabilities, whether because of being juveniles, insane or becoming "abominations" (werecreatures or vampires in cultures where this is unacceptable; OTOH, some cultures might require their leaders to be "abominations", such as a necromancian-ruled territory) shall be established: in cases of life-term rulers, it might involve the nomination of a regent, in other cases it might involve the resignation

Powers and functions
Traditionally, the powers of a government are divided in three parts: legislative, judiciary and executive

Separation of powers was not that widespread in the pre-1400 era, and even after, some mixing between powers ocurred (for exemple, French ministers still tried administrative cases related in their functions, and until 2009 the British House of Lords had judicial functions), and so, in my model, rulers start by having all three powers to exerce

Legislative
The legislative function refers to law-making authority, the power to create, modify or delete legal norms

However, as I mentionned in other threads about criminal and civil law, divine revelation, customs, judicial precedents and doctrine are also sources of law; legislative function refers to the deliberate creation of law

To make law, the ruler informs himself with his ethics and values, along with what he see as solution to issues facing the state and his plans

Judiciary
The judiciary function refers to the resolution of disputes by the application of the law

In my thread about criminal law, I refered to high justice and low justice as means to divide legal cases; I might define them below:
* High justice refers to felonies cases in criminal law and, in civil law, cases involving personal status, real estate, artifacts or amounts abobe a defined ceiling
* Low justice refers to the rest
It might be handy later, for issues such as appeals or procedures (high justice should involve more formal procedure than low justice)

The notion of jurisdiction shall also be viewed: it shall means the ability to hear a case and be defined by the type of justice, along with the territory or, more rarely, the persons
A jurisdiction with low justice shall be under a jurisdiction with high justice

A regular trial shall have first the fact determination and then a phase of decision based on these found facts, basing on law. Of course, more despotically-minded rulers might either not bother with a phase of determination of facts, even irregular, or not even bothering with any law other than their sole will

Executive
The executive function shall concern with the day-to-day running of the state, by the execution of the law and the enforcement of court rulings (see Administrative law). It shall also deal with foreign relations (see part on International law) and armed forces

As with law-making, values and ethics shall guide the decisions taken or the reactions to issues facing the state

Evolutions of constitutional law
Several factors cause the evolution of constitutional law

Delegation of functions
As this might appear at first, it seems rulers do every function of the state. It might be true for smaller-scale states (think clans) but, for larger ones they might have to delegate a bit or, in world magical enough, use items or spells (a ruler might put a spell on his realm to automatically mark for punishment any law-breaker, thereby dispensing with the need for courts; another ruler might have an item activating whether his country was at war, to destroy the enemies)

They might have to delegate, whether to more local entities (see Local authorities) or to officials and their bureaucracies (see Administrative law)

At the central level, more complex states (i.e. larger, more populous and/or wealthier) would require more skills at higher levels, and rulers might be less likely to fulfill these conditions: advisors might help them. To better describe this concept, I will introduce the Statecraft category of skills, grouping the category of skills needed to run a state such as Military leadership, Naval leadership or Foreign affairs. These advisors might be grouped in a cabinet, which shall be part of the government

Incubemcy and will to centralize
To oppose the above phenomenon, the ruler(s) want to get more and more powers inside the state, whether by reducing the local liberties to the benefit of the central government or, inside the government itself, getting more and more power

Another movement is the one seeing the ruler wanting more and more incombency, by lengthnening his term and, if already a life-term, tending to heredity or choosing his succesor

In a government ruled by a board of rulers, the head ruler would want to get more and more powers relative to the corulers until finally removing them

Moves from local and national groups
Some persons or entities (social groups, temples, clans and others) inside the state would want more autonomy to deal with their own affairs (see Local authorities), or more infleunce on the running of the state

The power of such persons or entities should come whether from their wealth, numerical influence or physical stregth, whether personal (sentient megabeast residing in a state, the strongest individual in a small kobold tribe) or collective (private militias)

They could influence the ruler for enacting a decision they want, either because of their ethics, values and interests, or to cancel it

On a larger scale, they could influe on constitutional issues such as trying to have their word in the choice of the ruler, whether by having him elected or by shortening his term, or the choide of his cabinet

Horse-trading might occur: for exemple, a ruler might try to get a life term by giving to local potentates less contributions or more lands. It might also occur between local powers, such as a noble family supporting a temple having temporal authority and representation, and this temple supporting this family having private armies

Such interventions might be made official by an assembly, part of the government, of such groups to deal with a specific question (for exemple the French Etats généraux were called by the king whether he needed to raise taxes) and, if these groups make more and more pressure, become institutionalised: this assembly will no longer have a transient existence but a permanent one and might be gathered at regular times. The delegates to this assembly might be chosen whether by election (by a group of persons or a local authority; some unusual cases might see a powerful trade company electing delegates), ex officio (for exemple, some of the most important landed nobles or priests might be automatically delegates), nomination by the ruler or by any other method; their term might be for a single reunion, for a term of years or for life

This assembly will try to wrestle more and more powers from the ruler but typically will start with trying to get more and more influence on legislation and contributions, starting with a consultative power. Assemblies and council might influe on each other, with assemblies wanting to have a say on the nomination of advisors
Of course, the ruler will try to redue their power; his ultimate purpose, if not held back by factors such as tradition, will be to suppress these assemblies

Constitutional crisis
Such crisis could occur when a surprising and unplanned situation happens. For exemple, a hereditary ruler could die without any descendence. In other cases, the succesion would be less clear-cut, or a more powerful claimant could, well, claim the throne for himself

Another way would be conflicts between stakeholders: for exemple, a ruler might levy taxes without consulting his Assembly

Yet another way would be a blatant constitutional violation, such as a ruler appointing himself for life in an office normally made to be held for only 5 years

The resolutions would be either the upholding of the old system (the ruler who appointed himself for life might end deposed) or modified (life nomination might become a constitutional norm); the process could be either peaceful or violent (think succession wars)

Conclusion
The model I described myself is a ruler ruling alone with absolute power, but whose state's complexity is growing, resulting to him having to nominate advisors, and more groups are asking for having their word to say in the running of the government. Such models might be relevant for a local landowner who became a warlord

It doesn't have to start like this: for exemple, a settlement might be started on a democraic basis, with the ruler, here Mayor, having to be elected by an Assembly of citizens, who also has legislative and judicial powers. From there, several options are available, such as status quo, an ambitious Mayor eroding democracy or, the population becoming too high, the citizens being represented by their guilds. We could even have alternate between autocracy and democracy with all the transitions between these two limits

Another case would be a sentient megabeast, who would be may more powerful than his subjects and consequently might be less forced to listen to his subjects. In an extreme case, an omniscient and all-powerful deity might be able to rule a totalitarian state; indeed, one might even wonder why he would bother with only a single state, apart if he is a tutelar god, limited to a geographical or ethnic delimitation

And what about the player? While having an adventurer ruling an entire state might be only in a long time, he could be an actor in the constitutional functioning of the state

LOCAL AUTHORITIES
Local authorities describe all the subunits of a state, whether geographic or demographic (think tribes and clans)

Description
A local authority shall have a population and, in some cases, a territory; some local authorities might not have any territory because their populations are nomadic

Local authorities are divided in site authorities directly governing a site, and regional authorities governing a group of site authorities or other regional authorities

Site authorities
Description
A site authority shall govern a site such as a fortress, forest retreat or city. More precisely, it shall govern the territory itself and its inhabitants

This territory shall be composed of the site itself and its hinterland (territory under a certain distance of the site) in which are present the holdings dependent of this site (villages, hillocks)

Sentient megabeasts who joined a state might also be considered, themselves and their home, as site authorities, such as a giant treating his retreat as his home. Such megabeasts could have subjects

Governance
Much like a state (see CONSTITUTIONAL LAW), a site authority has a site government, with its site ruler, whether collective (see Directory) or individual, and who could have gotten the position by election, heredity, cooptation or nomination by a higher authority. In addition of this, the governance shall be impacted on by upper authorities which might want to have more power inside: for exemple, they might want to ask for a right of confirmation on rulers or a veto right

Manorialism and local immunities
Two issues to consider, first, a local landowner wanting or even needing (if public services are too far) to have even more power, and second, a central or even regional government unable or unwilling to fully rule might end in a local landowner ususping or being given public law posers on his property, which would become a manor

A manor shall be an institution covering a continous area and who have public law powers. They shall be real properties able to be sold and conveyed by their lords of the manor, who could be sentients, groups such as clans or corporations such as temples. Their size could go from a small village to an entire district

A lord of the manor should be both the owner of lands in this manor (at least initially) and the subruler: for exemple, as owner, he could sell buy and land inside his manor to other parts but these lands shall remain under the rule of the lord of the manor. He shall also have public law powers on inhabitants

A related concept, for non-land based entities such as clans, might be immunities, where a clan would be considered as a nomadic local authority

Regional authorities
Regional authorities shall be the overreaching local authorities for a region encompassing several sites. They shall have a control over the site authorities (or paramountcy) and shall govern unincorporated territory outside any site authority. The authority directly above a regional authority shall be the government of the state

They shall be governed with ruler or rulers nominated by the government, hereditary rule or election. Local powers could obtain the ability to form regional assemblies in order to participate to the regional government, whose organization would be like the assemblies I described earlier in CONSTITUTIONAL LAW

Nomadism
Nomadic groups would have site authorities, tasked with managing the group members and their area of control

Nomadic authorities would see sites replaced by the clans I described earlier in my thread about civil law, the households being the constituing parts of these clans

The area of control of these clans would be the territory they control, whether by inhabiting it or by using it

Nomadism would be caused either because of the need of finding new pastures or because these people are hunter-gatherers; both behaviours would have to be implemented first

States wouldn't be all-sedentary ot all-nomadic: a nomadic tribe could have sedentary people as subjects while a sedentary empire could have nomadic clans under its yoke. A sedentary circonscription could have nomadic clans using territory outside the territory of stable sites

Powers
Public powers are the acts an authority is allowed to do and the fields they can legislate about; they are divided in three parts: higher sovereignty, which are the powers strictly denoting a sovereign state, such as foreign relations, lower sovereignty, which are powers which could be attribuated to lower ranks such as public order, and general powers, such as regulating fishing or public cleanliness

These categories shall be relevant for the next part

State and regional control
Any upper authority want to have a maximum control over lesser authorities, and conversely each lesser local authorities might want to protect and increase its autonomy and, if lucky, have influence in upper ranks

Local authorities will try to usurp powers of upper authorities, starting with those in the lower sovereignty category; usurping higher sovereignty powers might be attempted in cases where the local authority want to prepare a secession. Conversely, an upper authority might want to encroach on lower ranked authorities, starting first with the higher sovereignty powers

All this shall be balanced with the will of an upper authority to save resources by delegating parts of governance to lower parts, and the will of smaller authorities to be protected by upper ones (a city might want the state to protect its shipping from piracy). Traditionalism might also play a role, with some being more reluctant to do changes, especially if the present situation suits them well

Impact on playing
The History mod would have one more reason to have conflicts: the old-age controversy between central governments and local entities was a great mover of history; moreover, internal conflicts also were, with, for exemple, urban burghers fighting with landed nobility or these same burghers fighting against their own workers to settle who should rule or at least have power there, without counting with established incumbents wanting to have more powers to themselves. And this is without accounting between conflicts between local authorities, for exemple two villages ducking out over who should own pastures of a given well in a desertic region. Adventurers might participate in these conflicts

More peacefully, adventurers and historical personalities might be interested to get positions inside a site, or to manage the status of the settlement they built

As for Fortress mode, it might be expanded beyond "funding new colonies": maybe, for exemple, managing an already established place, and not only a fortress/city but an entire region

[Azerty]

ADMINISTRATIVE LAW
An administration is an institution helping a public authority to rule and govern; here, public authority means a state or its subdivisions

Birth
In the beginning, in most smaller public authorities, rulers might want to do most of the work; indeed, authorities with less complex work will have a simpler administration, such as village leaders doing the bookkeeping themselves

However, in more complex cases, requiring more worktime and more skills such as bookkeeping in a larger city, higher Statecraft might be required, and rulers might have to give them to specific persons known as officials, who could rule the administration needed to fulfill their functions. This could be related to the cabinet described earlier, since advisors might also become heads of their administrations

Some officials might start as part-time, such as the head of the constabulary of a small settlement, or even hired as the need arise, such as an authority doling out prizes to bounty hunters for criminals, before becoming more professionalised

There would be two kinds of administrations: civil and military

Civil administration
Civil administrations are those tasked with fulfilling non-military tasks such as bookkeeping, medical care, forestry, post office or justice (see more later)

It shall be constitued of a direction, which shall be one individual leading it; adminsitrations with a heavier workload might instead have a three-members direction

Under the direction shall serve scribes (for the bureaucratic side, named chancery; the bigger the org is, the more scribes are needed) and more technical workers (for exemple doctors for a hospital), who shall all occupy positions

An administration shall have a central office from where the head of the administration will led it, and, if needed (for exemple, tax collection), branches headed by managers in several localities to carry its work. They could be either in the house of the government of the public authority (especially for the central office) - there's a rason why palaces were huge, or have specific buildings (for exemple, we could have a tax office where local taxmen and their scribes would work)

The chanceries of an administration shall fill out ledgers and communicate with their higher ups, both depending from their activities: a branch with much activities shall have large ledgers and shall have a large correspondance with the central office. For exemple, a tax office shall have the ledgers of the taxpayers and the properties in its area of work, said ledger to be put in its archives and a copy of it cent to the central office; conversely, the central office shall send directives to the local branches

The quality of these ledgers and the correspondence shall be important to decide the efficiency of said administration, or administrative capacity (AC), and this quality shall be dependent of the administrative skills of the scribes. Smaller administrations could go with what AC their workers give them: after all, in a small village, the chief could generate, by himself, enough AC points to make the village work

AC would determinate how efficiently an administration can do its work, or if it can do it: for exemple, a tax office with a low AC would less efficiently gather taxes, getting less taxmoney than they could because, for exemple, they forgot about some taxpayers or badly evaluated a farm. It would simulate larger empires being forced to invest in more and more AC; to this we could add simulating graft by civil servants at low AC: indeed, at low AC, civil servants might also ask for bribes

Moreover, the public authority would let this administration use assets such as buildings, workers and money to carry out their missions, and sometimes this administration could hold property itself

States would try to streamline administration by concentrating them more and more, at least when relevant: while the folks tasked with keeping a settlement clean by swipping the streets would never be managed in the central siege of the country, post offices might be ratached in bigger and bigger organizations, starting from settlements and ending by the entire empire. There would also be horizontal regroupings to try to reduce the overhead; for exemple, instead of having two different hospital systems for the military branches, they could try to regroup them in one

Military
The military is the section tasked with, well, military tasks; added to this shall be the constabulary tasked with public order

Such services might be done by permanent armies, mercenaries or levies

As the authorities become more and more complex, they go from relying mostly on levies to having permanent armies

Permanent armies would be groups of soldiers permanently tasked with serving an authority
Mercenaries, either individual or in groups of mercenaries, would be private individuals hired for a time by a ruler
Levies would be private persons conscripted by the ruler to serve as soldiers, and militias or basically national guards

Of course we could have a mixture of this, with a small cadre of permanent retinues with mercenaries and levies being hired in wartime

They would all have the same organization: the squads would be made from soldiers under orders from their captain, and several of these squads would make a brigade led by its colonel, several brigades would make a division led by its general; lastly, all the divisions shall be led by the ruler or by a legate acting under his orders. Squads could have specialities, for exemple a squad could be mounted units or infantry
As for the navy, we could have several squads (each led by a lieutenant) inside a ship led by a commander, several of them making a fleet led by its admiral, with the entire navy being led by the ruler or the High Admiral
(Remains the question of flying wings of the military, using flying items or creatures, some already present)
In all cases these officers should provide military capacity, each unit having a minimal amount of MC to being able to function effectively; under this minimum the unit shall be less effective

MC shall be related to discipline (DP): the more disciplined an unit would be, the less likely it would try to mutiny or commit unsanctioned actions such as raidings. High DP units shall also be more efficient, representating their ability to obey: for exemple, a high DP unit shall be more likely to marsh without protest in snowy mountains. Another factor in DP would be severity: stern but just leaders will foster high DP but lax or cruel ones would lower it, ultimately leading to mutiny. Even before, low DP should result in soldiers committing crimes, such as highway robbery and looting

Of course all of this would scale: small polities would have a single squad directly actung under the ruler while a large empire would have the full service, with several generals and admirals

Some organized places would have specialist auxiliaries such as medics, engineers and chaplins, who would be treated as part of the military

Relations with private parties
Even today, administrations have to deal with private parties, and this situation might be even more likely  in times when it was more practical to use them rathen than doing the job themselves, whether because of cost (not enough AC or MC available) or access. In other cases, it is because an administration has to control private parties

They might do this by instead hiring private parties to do this. For exemple, the road in a province might be instead let to manage by a private company, who would have to build and maintain the road network and could reimburse by asking tolls from users. We could even have mix, with, for exemple, a post office overseeing local branches managed by private persons

Going further, a private party could also be given administrative powers: for exemple, a doctor's guild could control medicine in its territory since it could be cheaper than setting up an administration. To do these missions, some could be given taxation powers: for exemple, the aforementioned guild could tax doctors and hospitals

Civil servants and others
The persons tasked with carrying administrative tasks would be recruited in various ways and then differently treatd

Civil administration
Bureaucraties have been common in history, along with the need of having technical expertise. Such workers could be hired as the need could arise, such as someone being hired to fix a road. As the matters became more complex, bureaucrats are hired permanently by the official ruling over the administration

They are first dependent of the official who hired them and work only in this administration; however, rulers would want to cenrralize the human/dwarven/elven resources and finally bureaucrats are depending of the public authority, meaning they could be reassigned between administrations, so for exemple a traductor might be transfered from a post office to the diplomacy or a scribe might be sent to a place where additional AC is needed

As for the hiring, they could be made by the local authority or by the administration. They could have conditions on education (which could trigger the creation of schools to train the bureaucracy, some managed by this bureaucracy itself), social class (some would require their civil servants to be citizens) or achievements. In some universes, some administrations could use magic or otherwise supernatural items, requiring specific personal

They could progress by their work results or by their connections

As for the compensation, they could either receive wages or, if species was too much scarce, they could have landed estates attached to their position whose proceeds would be their income; more advanced versions could see managers being given farmland or other profitable properties and having to fund their operation with it. Real property and item could be attached to a position, which would enable us to have regalia and housing such as palaces

Most important workers (such as managers), along with lifelong or hereditary leaders (see CONSTITUTIONAL LAW), might also receive resources for members of their household; indeed, such households could become separate administrations, with bureaucrats and other workers tending to the need of the ruler and his family, with DECORUM being a huge factor; we could simulate the management of royal households

Military
Military members could be recruited either from subjects or foreigners. In some societies, military service could be the preserve of a class such as nobility. They could either take volunters or non-volunteers such as drafted persons or levies. For exemple, we could see a public authority asking every adult to report with their weapons to repel an invader, or we could see a tribe bound to military service

Physical conditions might also be more important than in civil administrations; they could ask for a clean bill of health. Some groups might ask for additional conditions: in theocracies, faith in the established religion might be requiered

Administration in practice
History mod
I wanted to provide mechanisms explaining how a road was built. For exemple, a ruler could want a road to link two major settlements; the Public Works might sent surveyers to determinate the track to take, and then an engineer would order the building of the road

It might also explain other things: for exemple, this same road could become unmaintained because the administration is corrupt or simply ceased to exist due to an invasion (see the Roman roads)

Education might also be impacted: large bureaucraties were often an impetus for education, as parents might want toehri children to become civil servants, and states wanted to train their workforce. We could see schools whose pupils would work in the public sector

Lastly, empires might have to juggle with AC, MC and DP, which could limit the amount of interventions they might want to do, simulating administrative bottlenecks: for exemple, there might not be enough scribes to manage a post office, forcing administrations to sell tax rights to private investors; another exemple would be a road whose management would be rented to a private group. Similarly, mercenaries might become relevant in states where not enough AC is available

Adventure mod
The player might have to work with administrations: for exemple, he might have to pay road tolls to travel on a road

Another thing, very far in the future, would have adventurers entering in an administration: he can already become an hearthperson so the first step is already there. He might become a lawman for a site and then promoted to manage law enforcement in the entire region. Another exemple would be to manage the roads of a region, building them where the ruler want them, maintaining the ones still existing and getting the resources in personal and in material needed, dealing with rivalities from other bureaucrats, whether in his administration, in another administration under the same ruler or even a different one (for exemple, defending the post office you are administrationg in a privince from encroaching by the imperial post office), all while juggling with the AC and/or MC

JUDICIARY
Presentation
When being live in a society, disputes and dissensions will occur. To deal with these, several institutions have been created, among them a judicial system

A justice system shall be an administration with speficic rules

Pre-judicial methods
To settle their disputes, other than arbiters under the local ruler, we might see other methods

Direct action might be the elementary methods, with the parties settling the matter using force, often while calling their friends and relatives: such methods would include feuds and vendettas. Lynching might also be used: crowds would take a suspect and punish him, ranging from light beating to being tortured to death. More peaceful methods might include compensations (for exemple blood money for a murder)

More organised methods could include vigilantism, whether from persons or organised groups, or private arbiters (local priests, landowners or a scholar) being used as judges

Surnatural methods might include divine intervention (for exemple, a deity could bless a place so that every lawbreaker is smitten)

Instituonalised means: the court system
Eventually more ordered ways to settle conflicts emerge, especially the one with the support of the force of the polity: the judicial system

A judicial system shall have courts, tasked with making justice, and a jurisdiction, which shall describe its domain of action

If no supernatural means (i.e. for exemple a device determinating guilt and/or innocence) then a court shall have a creature serving as judge or several one, with one being the chief judge, whether part-time (for less important court) or full-time. A Statecraft skill, along with several Social skills, might be useful for that purpose

Organisation
A judicial system shall be under the leader of a polity and shall be defined by its degree and its jurisdiction

Degree shall consider if it's high justice or low justice: high justice shall he, in criminal cases, all felonies (defined here by crimes punished with a sentence above a score of severity) and, in civil cases, all cases relative to real estate, personal status and controversies above a certain value; low justice shall be any other case. A jurisdiction with high justice shall also have low justice; however, a jurisdiction with low justice only shall be linked to a high justice - for exemple, a manor having only received low justice shall link itself to a high justice jurisdiction

Jurisdiction shall determinate over who, whom or where shall it have powers. Usually it shall be land-based such as having powers on the territory ruled by this polity; in some cases (tribes, powerful groups such as proeminant temples or wealthy guilds) it shall be person-based, and in smaller cases (powerful administrations such as customs ot forrests) it shall be matter-based

Inside a judicial system shall be a hierarchy of courts. Simpler system shall have one single court while more complex ones shall have several ones, ranked whether by territory (for exemple, one court by settlement), persons (one court for military and other ones for civilians), degree (a high fourt for cases relating to high justice and justices of the peace for low justice) or matter (customs court, religious justice). A court shall have one judge (or several ones, such as three, for more complex cases) and might have a jury in some cases

Finally, a judicial system should generally enforce the laws of the polity which created it: for exemple, a city might enforce its own laws in its courts. It could simulate city courts punishing violation of bylaws. Other cases might appear, such as a landowner setting courts where the laws of his empire would be enforced

Procedure
First, evidence and testimonies should be gathered in discoveries or investigations in order to have enough informations to allow the court to decide. While, in civil cases, it shall be done by the parties, in penal cases it shall be the job of public authorities tasked with prosecutions. Depending of the ethics, some methods could be used: for exemple torture of witnesses might be allowed epending of the value of TORTURE_FOR_INFORMATION. In other places, supernatural means such as ordeals and magical items of the JUSTICE sphere might be used to determinate facts

The trial proper, where each party shall confront evidence, with the burden of proof being borne by the party making the allgations. For exemple, in penal trials, it shall be to the prosecution to demonstrate the guilt. Of course, some system might have equality and other might even have a presumption of guilt. The trier of facts might be the judges themselves or the jury
Public interests might be representec by specific parties such as attorneys, which could be tasked with defending a public interest in all penal cases and in civil cases where public interest exists such as whether a band of forest belong to a public corporation or to a local temple. The concept of public minister wasn't present everywhere in the past: in some jurisdictions, it would be the victims which shall prosecute the offender (see Ancient Greece), while others would be more mixed, with some offenses prosecuted by victims and other by the ruler or any other party (for exemple, I could see a temple suing heretics or a doctors' guild suing quacks)
Parties could also have specialists, or lawyers, to help them in court

All isn't finished by the trial; after the facts are determinated, the judges shall render a decision according to these facts: findings of guilt in a crime shall result in a sentencing while findings a contract is valid shall results in parties being ordered to respect this agreement. There should be clerks to manage the ledgers of the courts, registering the rulings and contracts made under the jurisdiction

In some judicial systems, that would be the end of it: in others, rulings can be appealed, either in law or in fact. As for the appeals in fact, low justice courts chall appeal to the related high justice court for a trial in novo; high justice cases might not be able to be appealed in fact. For trials in novo, the determination of fact shall be redone anew
Some systems might allow for appeals in law, because a judicial system rulings might be more accepted if its rulings are seen as being legally done. Either the ruler of the polity or, more likely, a separate supreme court, shall determinate if a ruling was legal, said legality depending from the skill of the judge who made it; if this ruling is proven to not be legal then it shall be returned to the court which made it and redone

Finally, in criminal cases, the ruler can pardon the condemned, freeing him fron undergoing his sentence

Parallel jurisdictions
There was a time when a state could have several parallel jurisdictions, enforcing their own laws. Such jurisdictions were held by guilds, landowners, tamples and clans. They were created because such groups wanted to preserve their powers and/or because the central government wanted to save resources

While high justices would be pretty autonomous, low justices should bound themselves to a high justice, usually the one from the power which gave them autonomy: for exemple, the low justice of a landowner should be linked to the high justice of the empire which gave it him

For appeals, it might involve the parent jurisdiction: for exemple, the low justice of this landowner could be appealed to the high justice of the relevant empire

As for the law, it could depend of how this jurisdiction was created: some groups might have their own laws (especially the ones with high justice: for exemple nomadic clans might have their own laws) while others might have to enforce the laws of their superiors (such as the ones with low justice)

Public order
The notion of pulic order is bound to justice; the public order of a given political body is the prevention of actions this given polity deems as harmful. For exemple, in an human society, preventing murder shall be part of public order but the more anarchistic and chaotic goblins only deem regicide an actionnable action and murder as acceptable

In order to simplify things, I propose the holder of the jurisdiction on a place shall be responsible to maintain public order there

Less complex societies might only need posse comitatus (the ruler could be able to require locals to act in the maintainance of public order). More ordered ones might have devoted administrations to keep order, such as polices and constabularies, or merely would ask their military to do the job, like a gendarmerie

[Azerty]

TREASURY
Treasury shall be the total of property and claims of a political body

Property and wealth
As any person, a political body shall be able to hold property. Morever, as a political body, it shall have specific items

Private property held by a political body has been described in CIVIL LAW

Another category would be regalia, or properties held by reason of being a political body. They could be exclusive mining rights (for exemple, in some places, gold and silver deposits would be held by the empire), taxation and  monopolies (a jurisdiction could enact a monopoly on ivory trade, forcing every hunter to sell its ivory to the holder of the monopoly)

In some places, they could be sold or gifted (for exemple, to gain the support of a temple, an emperor might give a temple the local monopoly for amber)

Income streams
Here, we will wrote how a political body can gain income to pay up for its expenses

Taxation
A political body shall have the power to tax its domain

These taxes shall be born whether on the property, flux or transactions
 Taxes can be levied on properties, whether chattel or real
 Taxes can also be levied on persons
 Finally, taxes can be levied on social and economical relationships
 
More details below:
1) Property taxes: they can be levied on the values of properties, stating a portion shall be levied as tax: for exemple, on a farm worth ¤10,000, a tax of 0.2% might be levied, amounting to ¤20 to be paid. In other cases, it might be a fixed amount: an authority might order the payment of head taxes on cattle of ¤5
2) Taxes on the person: the taxpayer can also be taxed, whether on his income (for exemple, a temple being given priviledges might levy tithes on faithful) or in form of poll taxes. In earlier times, both were fused, since persons belonging to groups thought to be wealthier paid heavier poll taxes
3) Taxes on transactions: Finally, taxes can be levied on transactions; for exemple harbors might levy taxes on goods

Taxes could be paid through currency or by giving goods and services; the more a jurisdiction and/or a society is complex, the more it will tend to ask for coins, since they are more liquid. For exemple a remote village would ask its inhabitants to work three days a month to tend the roads and the common fields while a highly centralized empire would ask for more liquid coins

Escheat
Properties which become lost might be transfered to the political body. For exemple, an intestate and heirless succession could become property of the local authority in which the deceased resided

There might be repartition between the various political bodies relative to the category of the properties. For exemple, real estate might be escheated to the empire while chattel might become property of the city where resided the deceased

Other occasions to invoke escheat would be shipwrecks and criminal sentences (OTL, in the UK, felons were deprived of their estates)

Private income
As an entity, a political body shall be able to hold property, as stated above. It shall derive from this property an income

For exemple, it could have farmland it might want to rent out or otherwise exploit through an administration; another exemple would be mining

Income from the regalia shall also be listed here: for exemple an empire might decide to exploit a platinium mine by itself or rent it out. Another exemple would be a place where pearl fishing was made a monopoly whose responsible body would then sell it

Monopolies
A monopoly shall be exclusive rights on the making, selling, or dealing with a given good, such as salt, ivory or amber. It shall be protected by the empire

They're created through customary law or official decision; their creation needs AC to be maintained (after all, what's use a salt monopoly if those making salt without official authorisation are unpunished?)

Debt
Public debt might become available in the most organised public bodies. It shall depend of the credit-worthiness, which might be raised by specifically pledging an income stream (for exemple, road tolls might be pledged to pay up a debt)

A public body shall ask third parties such as wealthy invididuals (traders, major landowners) and corporations (temples, trade associations) to lend them money, such money being reimbursed to these parties

Of course, issues could occur such as not being able, or even willing, to pay back; consequences could occur, such as the creditors taking the benefits of the income streams pledged to them or the credit-worthiness worsening

Others
Other, smaller income stream could be looting, tributes and fines

Exploiting income streams
Income streams would have to be exploited first to gain resources; below are the different modes

Direct exploitation
Direct exploitation means that the exploitation of a given income stream shall be done by an administration, which shall borne the full costs and get the full benefits of it. Although it ensures the largest share of the income, it costs administrative capacity, so less ordered polities might not be able to use this mode as easily as hugely centralised empires

Leasing
Income streams can also be leased, for a term of several years, to third parties, whether public (local authorities) or private (traders, merchants), which would be allosed to take a share of the income before giving the rest to the owner of this stream; other versions might see them buy these leases for a set sum, reimbursing themselves later from this stream. While the global income is lower, it also cost less AC and so is attracive for resources-strapped polities

For exemple, a municipality might lease its custom tax to traders to save on the collection. In another case, public farmland might be rented out to farmers, as this is less burdensome than hiring bureaucrats to manage these farms and plantations

Currency
I earlier mentioned states would mostly ask for goods in the first stage of their evolution, since it would be ready to use. However, more complex states would ask for more liquid assets, and money fulfill such role

Currency might be issued by a political body: it shall be defined by a set amount of a fongible good, usually a metal such as gold, electrum or silver but other products might be doable (in some places, tobacco was a currency; in others, shells still are used). This political body might decide to make its currency the only one to be used

The creation of currency is something any polity would want to centralize. For metal currencies, maybe that some might start by allowing all smiths to make coins following a specification then restricting it to some sleected smiths and finally only allowing coining in mints. Additionally, central governments might want to remove from local authorities the right to operate mints. The reason for wanting to control these mints would be seigneurage, that persons might bring precious metal to be turned into coins and that mints would be allowed to take a small part of these coins as payment

In order to accelerate exchanges, maybe some places, among the most ordered, might introduce paper money, where someone, usually a trade guild, might print out paper bills and make them exchangeable for physical money at any time

In-game operation
Resources are vital for a political body to be able to function, so their exploitation will be a major feature of the game

In order to raise their administrative capacity, in addition to efficiency gains, political bodies will need more and more resources to pay the bureaucrats. As such, they will try to create more and more income stream and exploit them. Limiting factors in the expansion of these streams would be the lack of AdCap, which would drive to less direct means such as leasing out; the taxpayers, who might object to a too high tax burden, forcing the government to choose other ways to raise revenues, or try to persuade them (for exemple, raising taxes to create a highly-wanted road network might be doable, but forcing pacifists to fund an army might be impossible); lastly, there might not be enough resources available at all

Public finances were also a big aspect of politics, whether in the procurement of the funds or in their use: taxpayers might chafe at a tax burden they might find too heavy or simply cumbersome (high custom duties are bad for trade): the population might ask for increased input in the use of these taxes, and revolts might erupt about taxation. Some political bodies might not be able to fulfill their ambitions because of a lack of resources, and might have to limit themselves

The adventuter might have to pay taxes himself, enforce these taxes or be involved in resisting (tax revolts) or evading them: for exemple, to pass a bridge between two provinces, an adventurer might have to pay toll and could either obey and thus pay, "forget" to declare items such as ivory or jewelry or led other traders to riot against these taxes if he manage to convince them they are too high and/or illegitimate
 
RELATION WITH POPULATIONS
A political body doesn't exists outside its population and shall have relationships with it, whether by providing it with public services, getting resources and dealing with reactions to actions

Categories of sentient beings
A polity should distinguish between sophonts belonging to it as subjects, and foreigners who don't belong. Additionally, several subcategories shall exist inside these groups

Subjects could be divided in citizens, who totally belong to this body and have full rights, and other categories such as peregrines (subjects who have citizenship in a subjected local authority but not in the larger empire) or denizens (non-citizens who yet belong to the polity)

Foreigners might include aliens (persons habitually residing in a foreign polity), travellers (foreigners who are only passing in a polity) and residents (foreigners allowed to settle in the polity)

All those should have differing rights and duties

Apart from being exiled, subjects should always have the right to abode, along with being entitled to protection

It could mix with the system of legal categories I described in my post about civil law: for exemple, there could be a province where only landed nobility would have right of governance while a city might be ruled by the burghers alone

Rights

All sentient beings present in a given polity try to get advantageous public policies, along with the protection of their interests. They also try to participate in the definition of such public policies. They could have differing Political Weights (PW), defining how powerful they are, whether in relation to the polity or other groups

For exemple, subjects might want to get more input in the governance (see CONSTITUTIONAL LAW and LOCAL ADMINISTRATION)

Another exemple would be preserving rights. For exemple, foreign traders might be interested with ensuring freedom of trade to protect their access to internal markets; another exemple would be scholars wanting to protect free speech, to be able to write and publish books without having legal issues. Still another exemple would be priests from minority cults asking for religious freedom. Conversely, slaveowners would ask for their slaves and serfs to be denied basic civil liberties

As with the civil rights I described in my civil law post, civic rights woulds be defined in the raws
It would define rights such as speech, religion, keeping and bearing weapons, hunting and association. The polity might theorically have to respect them, but it could vary de facto (for exemple, a ruler might want to supress a cult he don't like, even though freedom of religion is protected for these worshippers); however, it could cause dissent (these persecuted worshippers might be discontent, which would express whether by legal means such as elections or even suing in court, or illegal, such as riots and even rebellion)

Conversely, polities might ask for their inhabitants to fulfill their duties: a citizen might be drafted for a war while a foreigner might be asked to pay up additional taxes

Interactions with the political body
In addition to institutional means described above, other means should be available, especially when no institutional methods is available (see absolute monarchies). It goes without says that oppresive polities might suppress these

Petitions shall be peaceful means to express disagrement: such means can be demonstrations and open letters, among others
Riots shall be unorganised violence: for exemple starving inhabitants looting a grain store
Lastly, insurrection is already present in the game; we should just ask to broaden the causes beyond nationalism. For exemple, angry and starving farmers might disagree with further taxation. They could either occur when leghal means didn't work (see Thomas Dorr) or when it was explicitely planned (a good plot to implement might be a group planning a rebellion ala The Moon is a Harsh Mistress). When an insurrection become better organised, when it create an alternate government, it is a rebellion, which is directed against the offending government, to force it to satisfy the rebels' demands: a civil war starts

Such movements could be directed either against the central government or a loval authority: in the latter case, the rebels might ask the central government to recognize them or, if they're secessionists, try to secede or at least negociate before risking a war

INTERNATIONAL LAW
This part shall be devoted to the rules and uses for relationships between independent polities

Actors of international law
The actors of international law are the independent states and the tribes

However, some applications might be done for independent actors such as bandits, pirates, megabeasts and some "abominations" such as necromancers

Instruments
The sources of international law shall be treaties and arbitrages
Treaties shall be signed by at least two actors; they shall be like contracts, and their subjects shall be matter relating to relationships such as peace, trade agreements, border delimitation and common works

Relationships
Actors have differing relationships: friendly, neutral and hostile, with further gradations

Such relationships depend of shared ethics and material interests. For exemple, two actors with shared ethics and no point of contention will be friendlier than two actors with vastly different ethics and much contention points

Interests shall be a common ennemy, long years of friendliness, etc
Points of contention shall be recent incidents, territorial claims, etc

Incidents shall be events such as raids from subjects of an actor against another actor, foreign traders being robbed or even murdered, civil servants persecuting nationals, etc. They shall have differen gravities (I'm sure a raid killing royalty might be worse than a mere trader being submitted to illegal taxes)

Diplomatic actions
Diplomatic actions shall be related to relationships: alliance treaties shall be very easily signed between friendly actors. On the opposite, war shall be easily declared against ennemy actors

Leagues
Polities will be able to conclude alliances for a common goal, most commonly military. The most basic leagues might be a defensive league against a given ennemy but more complex ones might be common defensive alliances with a single commander commanding treaty troops

More pacifist leagues might be trade leagues allying to protect their trade, religious leagues rallying to maintain the holy places of their religion and an infrastructure league to maintain a certain major road or canal

War
War shall be one of the major ways two or several polities are settling their disputes, depending of their ethics (a strongly militaristic culture might be more ready to wage war than the average). Wars should have casus belli, an incident grave enough, with underpinning causes: for exemple a city might invade another city because of a molested traveller while the underpinning cause will be the ownership of a major water source

Once declared, wars should end when one side either utterly crushes its opposition or when one party proposes peace terms the other side accepts (either because it feels it has the military advantage, allowing it to propose favourable terms, or because it feels itself overwhelmed and has to propose terms mitigating how disfavorable they are to itself; status quo ante bellum can also be proposed if the war lasted long, without any major engagement). In extreme circumstance, a polity can be annexed as debellatio

In-game operation
Improved diplomacy will provide a less random, more realistic way to manage relations between polities. In peculiar, wars would have real motives and the player, whether as a ruler or as an adventurer, might be involved in solving or causing them. Diplomacy might also be another game to play, with an adventurer having to fulfill diplomatic negociations, and a fortress ruler might ally with a human city against a goblin tribe who assaulted both of them or an elven retreat preventing them to cut trees.

CONCLUSION
I hope my suggestions will provide a more organic way to simulate states in DF, whether to simulate their behavior during the Legends mode, to rule them as a site ruler or to interact with them as an adventurer.

SEE ALSO

• Government Types
• Corporate Personality/Values.
• Seperation of Politics and Culture
• Class Warfare: Internal politics, scaling difficulty, and personalities
• The Law - the ultimate suggestion